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♦ 














THE MOON HAD GROWN SOFT AND PALE 



D 


THREE DAYS. 


A MIDSUMMER LOVE-STORY. 

BY 

SAMUEL WILLIAMS COOPER. 


“ I have broken the faith ; I have fled from the fight ; 
for the rest '* 


1L LUSTRA TED. 



PHILADELPHIA: 


J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, 

i 889. 


Copyright, 1889, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

“What is yon Gentleman?” 7 

CHAPTER II. 

“ Chaste Dian Bathing” 21 

CHAPTER III. 

“By Moonlit Sea” 40 

CHAPTER IV. 

“ And so we’ll Drift” 54 

CHAPTER V. 

“Go IN WITH ME TO DINNER” 76 

CHAPTER VI. 

‘ I Prythee to our Rock” 92 

CHAPTER VII. 

“Come unto these Yellow Sands” 107 

3 


4 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

PAGE 

“And so Dance out the Answer” 119 

CHAPTER IX. 

“ So, Good-bye to You” 127 

CHAPTER X. 

“To what End, my Lord?” 137 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


' The moon had grown soft and pale”— P. 51 . . Frontispiece 

ARTIST. 

C. C. Cooper , Jr. 

PAGE 

“ I KNOW NOT ANY PLACE SO FAIR AS THIS” 7 

C. C. Cooper, Jr. 

“ ' You PLAY AN AWFULLY GOOD GAME,’ HE 

SAID” 24 

Hal Hurst. 

CAPT. McALPIN 66 

Hal Hurst. 

Jessie 84 

Hal Hurst. 

“A WHITE-SAILED YACHT DRIFTED LAZILY 

OVER THE BAY” 100 

C. C. Cooper, Jr. 

“ * Come up to my cottage and take din- 
ner WITH ME* ”... HO 

Hal Hurst. 

‘‘My god, my god, why hast thou FOR- 
SAKEN ME?” 151 

Hal Hurst. 

5 


* 


































KNOW NOT ANY PLACE SO FAIR AS THIS 


THREE DAYS 


CHAPTER I. 

“what is yon gentleman ?” 

‘“Where shall we land?’ God’s grace, 
I know not any place 
So fair as this, — 

Swung here between the blue 
Of sea and sky, with you 
To ask me, with a kiss, — 

‘ Where shall we land V ” 



YOUNG- man strolled into the 
hall-way of the Hotel Glad- 
stone, and, after a few words 
with the clerk, wrote his name 
upon the register, — 


o-i4H 



8 


THREE DAYS. 


There was the usual after-supper chatter 
going on among the guests, which the en- 
trance of the stranger somewhat inter- 
rupted, for the luggage, carried by the 
porter, showed him to he a new arrival, 
and the maidens, even at this fashionable 
watering-place, seriously considering the 
problem of where the men were, became 
at once anxious to know about him, and to 
learn how long he might stay. 

They saw that he was tall and had a long 
muscular stride, which was not changed be- 
cause he was entering a crowded hall where 
many eyes were on him, — the possessors, in 
several instances, women of great beauty. 
They noticed, too, that his face was sun- 
burnt, his hair and heavy moustache dark 
brown, his nose large and straight, and his 
clothes of rough Scotch tweed, the proper 
cut. 

And then, when he said to the clerk, in a 
strong, pleasant voice, but with a trace of 


“ WIiAT IS YON GENTLEMAN ?” 9 

worldly drawl about it, “ Can you tell me 
whether Colonel Franklin McAlpin is 
about?” both maidens and mammas were 
satisfied that this man was “ altogether 
charming,” for they knew he must be 
the friend the colonel had told them was 
coming down to stay with him for several 
weeks. 

Colonel McAlpin had spoken, in his halt- 
ing way, first to Margaret Lee about him. 

“ You will be ... . sure to love him,” he 
said. “ He is called a handsome man, and 
has more brains and manners than .... all 
the rest of them put together.” 

Miss Lee had scoffed at the idea of car- 
ing, while inwardly determining that if Mr. 
Ashton proved to be anything like the de- 
scription given, he should have full oppor- 
tunity to explain to her his views on many 
questions of interest. 

How, as he passed under her critical ex- 
amination, she was almost convinced that 


10 


THREE DAYS. 


she should find in him at least something 
to amuse an idle hour. 

She was seated not far from the ofiice, 
and watched him meet his friend. 

“ Well,” said the colonel, “ how are you ? 
Glad to see you .... when did you come ? 
Why .... why didn’t you write to me and 
tell me about it?” He spoke without a 
stutter, hut with an odd halt in his voice, 
especially noticeable when he was most 
interested. 

u I had to stop in Boston on business, and 
did not know how soon I could manage it,” 
Morris Ashton replied. 

“ Has your .... trunk arrived. Come up 
.... up ... . stairs, and change your linen. 
We will order some supper for you now: 
I know you have had nothing. Lots of 
nice .... girls here, my dear fellow ; you 
will enjoy it ... . immensely.” 

And then they went down the hall, Colo- 
nel McAlpin clutching his friend’s arm, as 


“ WHAT IS YON GENTLEMAN t» H 

he talked to him in his odd, excited way of 
what was in store for him. 

As they turned away, Morris Ashton 
glanced over the people in the hall. 

“ What nice eyes he has !” Margaret Lee 
thought to herself; “so fierce and yet 
soft.” They seemed to linger for a moment 
on her face; — not the least offence or lack 
of respect in them, only the fearlessness that 
women love, whether it comes naturally or 
as the result of training. She was familiar 
with men’s eyes, and their ways, and was 
doubtful in this instance from what source 
the bravery came. “He must be over 
thirty, I know,” she said to her friend, 
Jessie Brooks; “his eyes prove it.” 

The colonel accompanied his friend up- 
stairs, and sat on the bed while Ashton 
made the necessary changes in his toilet. 

Franklin McAlpin was perhaps forty 
years old, though he did not look thirty, 
and was both a lover and a cynic in regard 


12 


THREE DAYS. 


to watering-places. He swore regularly 
each spring that he hated the very sight 
of them and their frequenters, yet he was 
always at the most fashionable, and stayed 
to the end of the season, merely, it seemed, 
to find fault with the place, the hotels, 
the fare, and, above all, the women. 

A friendship had grown up between the 
two men, the origin of which they might 
have been at a loss to account for had they 
troubled their minds to inquire. Many 
friendships are so, but, perhaps, in this 
instance, the reason of its continuance was 
because of the oppositeness of their char- 
acters. 

The colonel was nervous and excitable, 
with social position and wealth enough to 
indulge his peculiarities to their utmost 
limit ; indeed, society suffered from his 
open criticisms and behavior to an extent 
which it persistently refused to notice. 
Morris Ashton, on the other hand, was 


11 WHAT IS YON GENTLEMAN f” 13 

known, principally, for his absolute accu- 
racy of manner, speech, and dress; not, 
however, that he was either a fop or a fool, 
for he stood a test which placed him above 
that. 

He was a man who, if not entitled to be 
called successful in business, yet held his 
own as a member of the bar, and was one 
of whom men spoke well and women loved. 
His income barely enabled him, by economy, 
to support himself in “ that station of life 
in which it had pleased God to call him,” 
and so he was never loath to accept the 
colonel’s invitations to stay with him, at 
his house in town or at an hotel, when he 
chanced to he there. Perhaps he admired 
Colonel McAlpin because he was able to 
treat society as he liked ; while the colonel, 
besides his genuine liking for Ashton, was 
glad to have for his guest one who behaved 
towards the world in the way he knew he 
himself should have done. 


14 


THREE DAYS . 


It was one of Colonel McAlpin’s hobbies 
that bis friend should marry money, and 
he was persistently on the lookout for a 
good match for him, — like a widow whose 
one daughter has passed the point in life 
where her age may he told. 

They had not seen each other for several 
months, and had many things to talk over, 
— it would not he correct to speak of con- 
fidences between them. However, the colo- 
nel was telling Ashton about his last love- 
affair. 

“ You know,” he said, “ when I saw you 
last I . . . . was said to he engaged to Peter 
Phillips’s youngest daughter. Well, in fact, 
for a time, we did have a certain sort of . . . . 
understanding: she gave me her .... picture, 
and in return received a handful of those old 
family rings I carry about with me. But, I 
tell you .... when it came to going to see 
her every night, and taking her to the plays, 
and halls, and all that .... endless round 


“ WHAT IS YON GENTLEMAN V' 15 

of tlic whirligig, I . . . . couldn’t stand it 
1 swear I could not. I would some- 
times feel like saying to her — Get out .... 
let me alone ; why do you bother me so ?” 

All this in such a quizzical, half-serious 
way, that Ashton, though seldom moved 
by humor, laughed aloud. 

“ How many does that make?” he asked. 
“Do you keep count of them?” 

“ Never,” the colonel answered ; “ but 
they dog my footsteps always .... I even 
sleep armed to the teeth. You remember 
that fat girl I was so ... . fond of at Bar 
Harbor last summer: I swear I thought 
she and her big brother were after me .... 
last night, and I roamed about these rooms 

for several hours with that gun waiting 

for them.” 

“Have you any affair of that kind on 
hand up here?” Ashton said. 

“Not one,” the colonel answered; “my 
last experience was quite enough for me; 


16 


THREE DAYS. 


but for you, my dear fellow, I have selected 
something fine .... beautiful, rich, and 
witty.” 

“ That bright-eyed, dashing-looking girl 
who sat by the wall, near the office, as I 
came in?” 

“ There ! fate has backed me up at last, 
by gad, for you have named her, — Margaret 
Lee, of Boston.” 

“How much is she worth?” Ashton 
queried, presently. 

“ A clear million, I believe ; certainly, if 
you .... discount rumor, you will be safe 
in saying half of that sum.” 

“Well, I might exist on that, I suppose. 
Come, let us go down, and meet her at 
once. Who else is here ?” 

“ Girls, of course ! One of the prettiest 
is Jessie Brooks, a giddy little Hew York 
belle; then there is Mrs. Yan Guilt, the 

yellow-haired widow whom you met 

here last summer and ” 


“WHAT IS VON GENTLEMAN f” 17 

“ Come, I’m ready ; let’s go down to sup- 
per, and you can tell me all about it there.” 

Margaret Lee was still in her position of 
vantage in the hall-way, and was “ only too 
happy to meet Mr. Ashton.” 

There were the usual commonplaces. 

“ The colonel has told me so much about 
you, Mr. Ashton.” 

“ If it was pleasant, I sincerely hope that 
I deserve it. I need not say that I have 
known of you before : I have done more, — 
I have seen you.” 

“When? Oh, you mean just now.” 

“ And after seeing you, I need no one to 
praise you to me.” 

“ You don’t read minds, do you ? And 
you cannot surely tell by looking at me 
whether I am really clever?” 

“ Hot by looking at you, but by looking 
into the windows of your heart; they are 
so deep, no one could see into them once 
and not want to come back again.” 
b 2* 


18 


THREE DAYS. 


“May they not look deep and yet be 
silent?” 

“ To some, perhaps, who are blind to see 
in ; and to others, who cannot because they 
may not.” 

“Do you prevent them from reading 
yours?” she queried, looking at him curi- 
ously. It interested her to hear his com- 
pliments, — easy and forceful even on such 
short acquaintance. 

“Perhaps; hut they cannot prevent me 
from knowing when I so desire.” 

He was standing looking down, her face 
turned up to his, and he flashed a glance 
into her eyes so powerful she needs must 
turn away. 

“How long have you been here?” he 
asked, changing the subject. 

“ For about a month. I am to leave next 
week for Newport; hut who can tell?” 

“Has it been nice?” 

“Yes, rather; it will be perfect now, I 


“WHAT IS YON GENTLEMAN ?” 19 

think.” And she glanced at him, rather too 
coquettishly, he thought, for a girl with such 
dignity of beauty. 

“I am sure it will for me,” he said, 
slowly, “if you treat me well; we are so 
much the slaves of our surroundings and 
friendships, you know. 5 ’ 

“I should not think you would be, if 
what we hear is true : you who have so 
many resources within yourself to fall back 
upon.” 

“ "Which means, really,” he said, laughing, 
“ that I am never violent, and always harm- 
less ; and that I can amuse myself longer 
than most patients in blindly beating the 
air with my hands and laughing to myself.” 

And then the hateful colonel dragged 
him off to supper, and she kept her engage- 
ment to go to the Casino with Dr. Braman. 
He blamed her for being distraite, and she 
pleaded a headache. In truth, a low, firm 
voice still rang in her ears, and she was 


20 


THREE DAYS. 


thinking of brown eyes that would not be 
cowed, even before her searching glance. 

Was he on guard against her, or was he 
stony and impenetrable? He was surely 
worth conquering ; many a better man than 
he had presumed to defy her and regretted 
it sorely ever afterwards. 

“ He shall see.” 


CHAPTER II. 


Ci CHASTE DIAN BATHING.” 

“ Bright Sea, far flooding all the pebbled sand, 
Flinging thy foamy pearls from stone to stone, 

Thy lullaby, low murmured to the strand, 

Sounds like a lover’s tone; 

And yet I know, elsewhere, 

Some other shore as fair 

Thy waves have kissed and left it dry and lone.” 

Ashton was disappointed at finding Mar- 
garet Lee gone when he came from the 
supper-room ; hut he met some old friends 
among the guests at the house, and was pre- 
sented to a number of people, all animated 
by that ferocious desire to he entertaining 
especially characteristic of watering-place 
hotels. He then strolled down to the Ca- 
sino and had a bottle of wine with two 
Hew York men, talked over all the current 

21 


22 


THREE DAYS . 


scandals of tlie place, and was back at the 
hotel before midnight. 

As he stood chatting in the hall, a girl 
came in from the piazza, talking gayly with 
a youth of the kind most prevalent in sum- 
mer-time at the sea-side. 

“ Pretty girl, — I’d like to meet her,” Ash- 
ton said ; and afterwards stood by the stair- 
way talking to her. She was two steps 
above him and then only looked straight 
into his eyes, with that lack of shyness 
born of occasions more than her years 
would warrant. 

“ I know I shall not like you,” she said. 

“Why not?” most seriously. 

“Don’t think me fresh, will you?” 

“ Certainly not.” 

“Well, then, because you are too old for 
my use, and your coat fits you too well, and 
you do not know how to laugh.” 

She leaned over the banister and smiled 
her insulting speech at him as if she had 


“CHASTE DIAN BATHING .” 23 

been his sweetheart bidding him good- 
night. 

lie hated this style of girl, usually ; yet, 
with a trifle of disgust in his heart, he was 
compelled to admit the great beauty of the 
specimen before him. “ Such a lithe girlish 
figure, and nice fluffy hair,” he thought; 
“not a bad sort of girl for summer, but 
poor form.” 

“ Good-night, Miss Brooks ; you will like 
me better when I bid you good-bye instead 
of good-night.” 

For answer, she gave her hand, and, with 
a shake of her head and a careless laugh, 
ran lightly up the steps. 

Ashton and Margaret Lee had a game 
of tennis the next morning. 

She had a wonderfully accurate and diffi- 
cult overhand serve, and Ashton, who had, 
of late, played very little, was beaten by her 
several times. 

He was a man who did most things well 


24 


THREE DAYS. 


wliich required exertion of will, often win- 
ning at games in which he was unpractised, 
simply, it seemed, by the force of his de- 
termination. He fenced, boxed, shot, and 
rowed well, and by exercise in the gym- 
nasium kept his muscles hard and his body 
strong and healthy. 

Her victories over him nettled him some- 
what ; he would rather have felt that he had 
allowed her to win ; and he had that feeling 
in his heart that she was too masculine, — 
what man has not on such occasions? 

She was much too observant not to have 
noticed that she had won without his leave, 
and secretly rejoiced over the fact. “At 
least I am his match here,” she thought. 

“You play an awfully good game,” he 
said, as they sat in the shade, after the rub- 
ber was over ; “ one of the best I ever saw. 
You see I do not have much chance at it 
myself. I really believe you let me beat 
you, just to keep the interest up.” 



‘“YOU PLAY AN AWFULLY GOOD GAME,’ HE SAID.” 



CHASTE DIAN BATHING . 


25 


“There goes Mrs. Van Guilt down for 
her hath ; I think we had better follow,” she 
interrupted. “ When she turns out all the 
fashion must be there.” 

On reaching the beach, Ashton was soon 
ready for his bath, and while awaiting Mar- 
garet Lee’s appearance was struck with the 
brightness of the scene, gay with striped 
sun-tents and many-colored parasols ; pretty 
girls “ who could not endure bathing-suits, 
and hated the ocean,” hence laying them- 
selves open to anatomical criticisms from 
both sexes, lounged lazily in the hammocks 
beneath their shade. 

Mrs. Yan Guilt came forth in a close- 
fitting suit of white flannel, which showed 
to more than advantage the beauties of her 
figure ; she wore a dainty bonnet, trimmed 
with roses, suitable for an afternoon tea 
rather than the careless arms of the ocean. 
But as the extent of her bathing was in 
dabbling her embroidered feet in the 


26 


THREE DAYS. 


water, the sea had no possible chance for 
any undesired familiarity. 

“ I wish you would come and bathe me,” 
she said to Henry Brooks, with an admiring 
glance at his muscular arms; “you are the 
only man I feel safe in going out with.” 

“ So awfully sorry, hut I have another 
engagement,” he replied. 

“ Oh, you are much too popular,” — an 
attempt at pleasant sarcasm. 

Jessie Brooks, lying on the sand with 
Frederick Harcourt, a young Englishman, 
with delightful manners and a preconceived 
drawl, called to Ashton, — 

“ Don’t stand there so solemnly; why 
don’t you go in the water ? It may liven you 
up.” 

“ Still chaffing, are you,” turning to her. 
“You bathe well, I fancy ; I’m sure you can 
have no trouble in floating.” 

“ How, if I ask you why, you mil say it 
is because I am so light, then I shall be com- 


“ CHASTE DIAN BATHING 27 

pelled to say some vulgar slang which you, 
of course, would not understand.” 

With a red tennis-cap, tightly fixed over 
her ashen hair, and her straight figure, 
she was almost like a hoy, and yet there 
was a womanly winsomeness about her, 
with a childish grace of movement pretty 
to see. 

“ I will tell you some time why I do not 
laugh ; meanwhile, will you not think I 
have serious reasons and pity me ?” he said, 
as she turned away. 

“ You are not serious at all,” she an- 
swered; “you only pretend: I see it in 
your face. Good-bye; I must go down to 
the sea; I will meet you there later.” 

This girl’s impertinence jarred on him. 
What did she know about the serious side 
of life that she criticised him in this way? 
Who dared say he was not in earnest in all 
that he said and did ? Pshaw, little chatter- 
box ! 


28 


THREE DAYS. 


His meditations were broken by the voice 
of Margaret Lee at his side. 

“ Do you know I have been watching you 
for quite two minutes, but couldn’t make 
you look ; I think it must be nonsense about 
mesmeric influences and all that.” 

She had been thinking what deep-set eyes 
were his, and how dreamily the long lashes 
drooped over them, and what dark eyebrows 
were there. He was much too abstracted, 
though, and needed rousing. 

She looked tall and striking in her 
bathing-suit; but Ashton, who had been 
worrying himself to find out what it was in 
the beauty of her body that he did not like, 
came now to know that it was because she 
was too muscular. She lacked the fulness 
and softness without which a woman is 
never entirely adorable. There was noth- 
ing on her hair, which was brushed back 
from her face and fixed in a tight brown 
knot. Her eyes were of the darkest blue, 


“ CHASTE DIAN BATHING ” 29 

and command was in every look and mo- 
tion. 

“ She is spoiled by being too aggressively 
beautiful/’ was bis thought. 

“ Let us take a short run down the 
beach before going in,” she said. “ Come, I 
will beat you.” And when they slackened 
into a walk, they found themselves a long 
way from the bathers, and Margaret Lee as 
little out of breath as Ashton. 

“ How long will you stay here ?” she said, 
while he was wondering whether she could 
spar and fence as gracefully as she ran. 

“ As long as you make it pleasant for me, 
I think.” And then he fell again to specu- 
lating whether she could pull a boat ten 
miles out to sea with her muscular arms. 

“ I wonder if I can call her “ horsey” to 
express my feelings,” he thought to himself ; 
but he came to the conclusion that this was 
too violent a term for her ; perhaps its sug- 
gestiveness, however, caused him to say, — 
3 * 


30 


THREE DAYS. 


“ Is there much driving about here V 9 

“ Hot very much,” she replied. “ I have 
my horses, hut use them more to exercise 
them than for any enjoyment of the thing.” 

“ I hope you will sometimes take me out 
with you,” he said. 

He lost her reply, in thinking that one 
who kept her stable here must he well 
fixed. 

They did not hurry on their return, and 
he made the best of his opportunity. He 
tried to interest her in his work, and told 
her what he hoped for the future ; of his 
ambitions; and then of his trials, — the 
sorrows that hurt him and yet were so 
trifling, — most of them coming from lack 
of means; and how, in time, he believed 
he would conquer them all and stand forth 
with the wreath of success on his brow. 

He had a wonderfully earnest way when 
he chose, and Margaret Lee was deeply 
interested. 


CHASTE DIAN BATHING. 


31 


“ I wish I could help you,” she said. 

“ Considering that I am manufacturing 
all this sympathy, it works very well,” 
he thought; and then, with a weariness 
that was not altogether assumed ; — “ Emer- 
son says we must not try to live above our 
destiny, but it is so hard to tell what our 
destiny is. Logically, that seems the doc- 
trine of lassez-faire ; and yet who is contented 
when ambition is beating at his heart ? The 
image we see in the sunlight is always just 
ahead, and it is not until our footsteps 
falter with the weariness of age that we dis- 
cover it is not our own statue, crowned with 
bays, but only the ghastly skull of death, 
who smiles as he points to an open grave. 
There ! you have driven me to moralizing, 
and it is summer-time, and we are to go 
bathing, and our only thought should be of 
the joys of the day.” 

Margaret Lee was vaguely wondering of 
the manner of man this was, who passed in 


32 


THREE DAYS. 


the world of society almost as a fop, yet 
seemed to have sounded the shoals, if not 
the depths, of philosophy. 

She was a delightful girl in the water: 
fearless and an excellent swimmer, with 
none of the troublesome ways that women 
are apt to display. They swam out to a raft 
which was moored about a hundred yards 
from the shore and amused themselves in 
trying to outdive each other. Margaret 
Lee could turn a backward summersault 
with the carelessness of a mermaid. 

Catharine Forbes swam out to them with 
young Brooks to ask Margaret for some 
points on diving. She seemed a little 
shy in her efforts at first; she did not 
strike Ashton as being particularly attrac- 
tive, and he turned and was watching an 
exhibition of over-arm racing between 
Brooks and Harcourt. After a little 
while he heard her dive from the side 
of the raft hack of him, and, a moment 


“ CHASTE DIAN BATHING” 


33 


afterwards, on looking around, he could see 
her. nowhere. “ Surely,” he thought, “ she 
cannot have returned to the shore in so 
short a time, — and she would not go with- 
out Brooks in any case.” 

He sprang on the diving-hoard, and see- 
ing some little bubbles, dove into the sea 
and swam about beneath the water with the 
same ease as if he had been on the surface. 
Then he felt on his feet the flannel of her 
dress, and, in a moment more, had freed her 
from the rope in which she was entangled 
and was kneeling on the raft, while she 
lay white and still before him. 

Fortunately, she had been beneath the 
water such a short time that it needed only 
a few minutes’ expert effort on his part to 
get the air back into her lungs, and she 
breathed a long, gasping sigh. As he 
grasped her body in his arms, he noticed, 
even in the excitement of the moment, how 
soft yet firm was the flesh, and the perfect 


34 


THREE DAYS. 


proportion of tier womanly figure; and 
as she lay before him, he saw that she 
had small, shapely hands, delicate ears, 
and smooth, soft skin, tanned to a perfect 
olive by the sun. 

There was a fluttering of her eyelids, a 
few sighs, as sad to hear as if they had 
come from a breaking heart, and then 
she was looking up at him. Presently she 
spoke. 

“I think I must have been nearly 
drowned,” — with a little sigh, so sweet and 
childish 'that Morris Ashton wanted to 
take her in his arms again and comfort 
her with the babv-talk of ]rrrr@. 

“ Oh, I do want mamma so !” she con- 
tinued. “ Can’t you get me into the shore 
without swimming?” 

Henry Brooks, who, with Margaret Lee, 
had climbed on the raft, now called to an 
acquaintance who was rowing near by, and 
in a few minutes they were safe on shore. 


“ CHASTE DIAN BATHING ” 35 

In spite of Ashton’s insisting that nothing 
should he said about it, the accident proved 
the great topic of interest at the Casino 
after bathing hour. He was beset with 
questions of all kinds, which he answered 
briefly, leaving himself out of the account 
as much as possible ; indeed, in this, as in 
all other affairs of life, he bore himself with 
unquestionable dignity. 

That evening, as he stood alone on the 
piazza, he heard a step behind him, and 
turning, saw a girl with hands timidly held 
out for his own. 

“I did not thank you before, did I?” 
she said. “ How can I tell you what I feel ? 
Words are a poor return for what you have 
done, and yet they seem all I can give you.” 

“Don’t say that,” he said, holding Jier 
hands so tightly that she could not with- 
draw them, “ for I feel sure you can and 
will give me something more, — your friend- 
ship.” 


36 


THREE DAYS. 


“ I don’t believe yon need or want that,” 
she murmured, flushing. 

“ Come with me ; I want to talk with 
you.” And so she leaned against the 
baluster while he sat on the step below 
her, the fire in his unfinished cigar dying 
out. 

He had spoken to her so without much 
thought; an impulse of the moment per- 
haps, — an unconscious pleading of deep, 
soft eyes that needed him. Afterwards he 
talked with her without effort, seriously, as 
a man should talk to a young girl whose 
life he has saved and who is nervous and 
shy over thanking him for it ; and, as they 
spoke together, he found that her replies 
were not those of a child, but that they 
came from a woman’s heart. 

“ What strange eyes she has for so young 
a girl!” Morris Ashton thought; “they 
would be infinitely more beautiful though 
if she could only suffer to the depths of her 


“CHASTE DIAN BATHING.” 37 

heart ; yet why wish them changed by the 
hitter fruit of the tree of sorrow ? and what 
a sweet innocent mouth ! ” 

Ashton was too much of the world, too 
critical in his insight, not to know, without 
any other information than the observation 
of their short acquaintance, that this girl 
was unfamiliar with life, — that she had yet 
to learn of the great problem of good and 
evil in the world and the mystery of it all. 
She was trembling on the verge of woman- 
hood. Who should be the one to waken 
in her the fierce longings, the mad hopes, 
the indifference, the despair that make up 
the round of life for those who have loved 
and know the bitterness of the truth? 
Some there might be, stony and cold, to 
whom the world was only a place, during 
later life, for the evolution of the mud-pies of 
childish days ; but this girl was not among 
them, — he knew that with the keenness of 
animal instinct. How interesting it would be 


38 


THREE DAYS. 


to watch the change in her eyes and mouth, 
— the gradual development of womanhood 
in a habitation so sweet as this! and yet 
what a pity to destroy the confidence of one 
with such a trusting nature! 

“ What makes you think I will not 
want your friendship ?” looking at her 
earnestly. 

“ Well, you are so much older than I, and 
more learned, and — I am only a girl yet, 
you know.” 

“But you are not a shallow girl, or a 
stupid girl, or even a giggling girl, are 
you ?” 

“Ho-o,” somewhat doubtfully and mod- 
estly. “ But still ” And then she 

stopped. 

He laid his hand on hers. 

“Well, then, try to be the friend I want 
you to he, — your own natural self. Don’t 
you know, in this troublesome world, men 
appreciate the friendship of a good, true 


« CHASTE DIAN BATHING” 39 

woman, and that it is a help and a comfort 
to them in their trials and sorrows?” 

“ I will try,” she said, while their hands 
met, warm and close, in a clasp such as she 
had never known before. 


CHAPTER III. 

“by moonlit sea.” 

“ Last night we sailed, my love and I, 

Last night and years ago, 

Was it sea or moon we drifted through? 

I think I ne’er shall know. 

We had no oar, 

We neared no shore, 

We floated with the tide ; 

The moon was white, 

The sea alight, — 

None in the world beside.” 

“You will walk with me this evening?” 
During supper she thought of nothing 
else. How proud she was that he had asked 
her, and how glad that it was he who had 
helped her that morning! 

Later, Margaret Lee watched them as 
together they passed down the walk. Was 
40 


“BY MOONLIT SEA. 


41 


not this man brought down here by Colonel 
McAlpin for her ? Had she not taken him 
as her friend, and what right had he, then, 
to go off with Miss Nobody in this way? 
But it appeared that Mr. Ashton, if poor, 
was still a man accustomed to have his 
own way, when it suited his wishes, even 
if heiresses and chosen matches had to 
stand aside on his account ; and so she was 
compelled to satisfy herself with Frederick 
Harcourt, the heavy young Englishman who 
had come over from Newport, the day be- 
fore, to see Jessie Brooks. 

“ I am going for a little walk, mamma,” 
Catharine Forbes had said. 

“Well, I wish, my daughter, you would 
not, for you are quite unstrung by that ac- 
cident this morning,” her mother answered, 
in that tone which told that she knew her 
wishes would avail nothing. “ Come back 
very early, at all events, if you must go.” 

“ You don’t obey your mother, do you ?” 

4 * 


42 


THREE DAYS. 


Morris Ashton said, as they crossed the 
lawn. 

“ Well, you see I am mamma’s only child. 
Papa died when I was very young, so I 
have been spoiled, I suppose. Then the 
two years we lived abroad mamma was ill, 
and I got in the way of taking care of her, 
so of course she cannot turn into a mistress 
after being led so long.” 

He was curious to know how this girl came 
to he so much a woman in thought, and yet 
was like a little girl in many of her ways. 

“ Tell me about yourself and where you 
have lived,” he said. 

“ It won’t take me long to tell you that. 
We lived at our place just out of Hew 
Orleans until about three years ago, when 
we went abroad. I have never had a chance 
to go out, and so, being brought up at 
home, and having read a great deal and not 
brushed against the world much, I suppose 
I am old-fashioned in my ways.” 


BY MOONLIT SEA. 


43 

“ Which means that you are a great deal 
of a woman and a child in one?” 

“Well, I was twenty years old in May, so 
I really am a woman.” 

They had reached the Casino, and she 
was about to enter, but he would not have 
it so. 

“ I do not care for the crowd,” he said. 
“The moon is just rising, and we will 
find it much more beautiful down on the 
beach.” 

“Is it quite right to go?” she asked. 

“Most certainly it is. I would not ask 
you if it were not ; don’t you know that ?” 

Hot quite true, Morris Ashton, perhaps, 
but then who would not wish to feel the 
touch of those slender fingers, and win the 
confidence of so sweet a child? 

The moon was lifting up in the sky, misty 
and red, when they reached the beach. 
Catharine had a snowy scarf about her 
hair, and in the shadowy atmosphere Ash- 


44 


THREE DAYS. 


ton thought lie had never seen anything 
more winsome and fair. 

They walked along, without speaking, for 
a few moments. 

“ Moonlight on the waste of ocean makes 
me silent always,” she said, at last. “ Don’t 
you think if people were to come down to 
the shore, each night, and watch the waves 
and look up at the stars, they would lose 
all their doubts about God? Surely there 
must be some power more than the forces 
of nature in all this?” 

“ Are her laws not great enough to con- 
trol it all ?” 

“ I never could have any doubts ; they are 
unnatural to me,” she answered. “ Faith is 
born in me ; I have always had it ; I don’t 
think anything could change it.” 

“You are a Roman Catholic?” 

“ Yes, mamma is, and so I am, but papa was 
— well, I am afraid not much of anything, 
and we grieve about it often, mamma and I.” 


“ BY MOONLIT SEA.' 


45 


It pleased him to know of her faith, for 
he felt there was something about the devo- 
tional part of that religion more suitable to 
the warm feelings of such a woman than 
the cold rubrics of other denominations. 

“ Do you go to our church?” she continued. 

“Not often to any,” — smiling. It would 
not do to tell her he spent Sundays in 
fencing or sparring or sport of some kind. 
“ I work so hard during the week I like to 
have one day in the seven that brings with 
it no obligations. By training I am an 
Episcopalian, hut, I fear, not a very consist- 
ent one now. We need stronger weapons 
for the battle of life than prayer-books.” 

“ I think every man is better for belief,” 
she said, softly. 

“I have grown beyond it, I fear, Miss 
Forbes. I am over thirty years old, and life 
is a poor amusement for me. I am storm- 
beaten at this half-way point, and can only 
see the heights I long for in the far distance 


THREE DAYS. 


. 46 

still. In the valley I pluck some, flowers, 
but they are much alike and soon wither 
and die, and I loiter and grieve and toil, 
irresolute and indifferent, — and then I sit 
down and fold my hands and look at the 
sea, as we can do now on this comfortable 
piece of wreck.” 

“Don’t speak like that,” she said. “I 
hate to hear any one do so, but particularly 
a man of such power and brains as I think 
you possess. Far better to be killed in the 
open with your face to the foe than to hide 
in the brambles or run away.” 

“ But the longing to play when we can 
only see work before us, and the tempta- 
tions that beset us to barter away our man- 
hood for a handful of silver or a riband to 
stick in the coat, like Browning’s Lost 
Leader. There are so many ways of mak- 
ing our fortunes besides working them out 
in the dust, mid the heat and the sorrows 
of the stony road.” 


11 BV MOONLIT SEA J 


47 


Afterwards, she understood, too well, what 
he meant ; now it was only plain to her that 
life was sad for him, and she wished she 
could help him. 

“ But where is the use of life if it is not 
in the knighthood of it ?” she said. “ Surely 
you can see nothing noble in sloth, though 
it he in the mist of flowers? What can 
anything matter if you can only say, ‘I 
have fought the good fight; I have kept 
the faith; for the rest V ” 

She caught his expression of wonder; 
for truly he was interested in it all. She 
had spoken earnestly, with nothing of the 
school-girl moralist about her. 

It was long since he had heard such 
teachings, and he inwardly wondered what 
his friends at the Club would think if they 
could read a verbatim report ; and perhaps 
Cora Ingram would like to see it also! 

“ Suppose,” he replied, after a moment, — 
“ suppose the end of all the striving is to 


48 


THREE DAYS. 


sit in the darkness, . with foes everywhere 
you may turn, your body bruised, and 
with wounds that drop blood; with broken 
weapons at hand, knowing virtue untrue 
and seeing only defeat ahead, where will he 
the profit in having done the best we knew; 
in having battled for truth, when the grave 
of every hope we may have lies before us ?” 

“Because, ” she said, quickly, “ it is cow- 
ardly to run away, and, besides, life does 
not have things so.” 

“Many, many times it does,” he said, 
softly ; and then went on : “ Oh, how much 
better to avoid all such conflict and fly to 
the Lotus Land of sweet do nothing; to 
lounge on the sands, where it is always 
summer, and flowers and fruit are to be had 
for the picking, and die to the lulling sound 
of the surf on the shore !” 

“And to be a sweetly contented South 
Sea Islander instead of a leader of men,” 
she said. 


BY MOONLIT SEAN 


49 


“How ready she is in her answers!” he 
thought. “I wonder where she learned 
it all?” 

They strayed off into other fields, without 
deciding the problem they had so earnestly 
discussed, each perhaps knowing the truth, 
but appreciating that the arguments against 
it were so forcible to trail humanity that 
neither reason nor the church could meet 
them entirely. 

When he first talked with her, he had 
known that this girl had that indescribable 
womanly intelligence which may he indi- 
cated by saying that it is intuitive ; hut he 
was amazed at the depth of her knowledge 
and thought, — it was not obtrusive, hut 
beautified all topics that she touched. She 
was not prim or pedantic, hut had all girl- 
hood’s ways with the promise of woman- 
hood, — good and true, and about her a 
breath of spring-time air subtle-scented as 
the odor of wood violets. 

C d 5 


50 


THREE DAYS . 


But it was the lovableness of the woman 
herself, more than her wit, which charmed 
him. lie was well versed in occultism ; and 
extreme physical affinity was one of his 
favorite beliefs. Had he not felt it strongly 
himself, — sometimes in instances where he 
was at a loss to explain it? And now he 
was possessed with a wild desire to clasp 
these soft hands in his own, to kiss the 
upturned mouth and eyes that invited his 
caresses with a longing that she did not 
know. 

"Were you aware, sweet reader, while 
you sat out there in the moonlight, last 
night, with the handsome fellow you had 
just met, that, as he leaned over you and 
spoke, perhaps some commonplace words, 
he had the same wild heating at his heart ? 
He spoke no word, of course, because he 
knew it would be improper and cost him 
your friendship, but your hands were beck- 
oning him, your eyes bidding him, and your 


11 BY MOONLIT SEA." 51 

lips entreating him, though your mind was 
far away from such things. 

Ashton, you see, had grown old enough to 
analyze his feelings, hut the mind of Catha- 
rine Forbes had been kept free from such 
thoughts; she only knew that this was a 
man with whom it was a pleasant thing to 
talk, and that his voice lingered long in her 
ears. 

“ With the exception of Henry Brooks,” 
she said to him, “ I have really never known 
any men intimately. I have had no chance 
to meet them, and I suppose I must seem 
odd in my ways sometimes.” 

“I wish more women were like you, if 
you are so,” he answered. 

The moon had grown soft and pale in the 
hazy atmosphere of the summer night and 
made a dim silvery pathway over the sea, 
resting so quietly that the sound of the surf 
on the sand was hut whispering to their ears. 
Westward lay the long reach of beach, with- 
5 * 


52 


THREE DAYS. 


out end save the uncertainty of the night ; 
hut to the east, afar off, was the town, gay 
with its lights,— and they caught, now and 
then, the faint sounds of music. 

“ Is the pathway the moon has built to- 
night like that you see ahead in your life, — 
dim and uncertain?” She was returning 
to their former theme. 

“Had you asked me that when we first 
came out here I might have truthfully an- 
swered that I was not much interested one 
way or another ; now, I say that I hope it is 
not. Miss Forbes, I have talked to you, 
to-night, as I have not talked to any one 
for years, — you know I am alone in the 
world. Will you believe me? what you 
have told me has stirred my heart somehow. 
Your view as to the battle of life is the true 
one, but you speak without experience and 
not knowing its sorrows, its mad tempta- 
tions, and its fool arguments, that by long 
custom beat our hearts into subjection. 


“BY MOONLIT SEA ” 


53 


Believe me, I shall never forget what you 
have said to me to-night, and I hope my 
pathway will he better and more certain in 
its end, — not a waste of waters and moon- 
shine.” 

“ Oh ! if you could know how much a 
soul seems to me ; how sick at heart I am to 
think of its sacrifice for the trifles life here 
can give, you might realize what I have 
told you.” She looked him full in the eyes, 
— a beseeching look. “ Come,” she said, 
“ let us return ; it must he very late.” 

There was a letter addressed in the an- 
gular hand of a woman of the world lying 
on the dressing-case in his room ; it was yet 
unopened. He tossed it into his trunk, 
carelessly. 

How lovable she was, and how soft was 
her voice ! Pshaw ! what would the world 
say if they knew he had in his ears those 
sweet childish words, “ T have fought the 
good fight; for the rest ?” 


CHAPTEB IV. 


“and so we’ll drift.” 

“ Oh I the town behind us faded in the pale, pale gray, 
As we left the river shaded, and we drifted down the 

*>ay> 

And across the harbor bar, 

"Where the hungry breakers are ; 

You and Grace, and Tom and I, 

To the golden land with laughter, 

Where we’d live in peace thereafter, 

Just beyond the golden sky.” 

“ My dear fellow .... what does this 
mean?” said Colonel McAlpin, the next 
morning, as he came into Ashton’s room 
before he had gotten up. 

“ What does what mean ?” from his friend, 
sleepily. 

“ Why, going off to the beach with Miss 

54 


“AND SO WE'LL DRIFT” 55 

Forbes all last evening instead of . . . . com- 
ing to the Casino dance.” 

“ It means that I come away in the sum- 
mer-time to do as I please, my boy,” Ashton 
cried. “What time is it?” 

“ Ten o’clock ; you had better hurry if you 
want to get into the dining-room before the 
doors close. But what am I going to do with 
Margaret Lee ? I picked her out for you .... 
and now you don’t seem to want her.” 

“ Take her yourself, my boy, if she is so 
desirable : but you don’t give me a chance ; 
what is one night among so many? Miss 
Lee is really a sweet girl, but the tender bud 
of love must not be forced, else may it die 
ere it comes to perfection.” 

“ Well, whatever plans you may make for 
to-night .... keep the .... whole of the after- 
noon clear, for the ‘Jane’ is in the offing, 
and it is the day of all days for a sail. I 
shall put a large party aboard her, and then 
. . . . Ho for the open sea !” 


56 


THREE DAYS. 


“ All right, but don’t fail to ask Miss 
Forbes.” 

As Ashton hurried down to breakfast, he 
saw Catharine Forbes ahead of him, and, as 
he overtook her, she turned aside to let him 
pass. 

“ Good-morning, Miss Forbes,” he said, 
as he looked at her when she smiled and 
held out her hand ; and then, “ You had a 
long sleep, did you not? You look as if 
you had bathed in dew this morning. I am 
most glad our late walk did not harm you.” 

“ I have been thinking about you so 
much,” she said, strangely, as they went 
down together. “I dreamed of you last 
night; I thought you had become a great 
lawyer and you were pleading so earnestly 
for a woman ; and she was innocent. You 
stood before the jury fearlessly, your eyes 
flashing and your voice growing more and 
more eloquent, hut they did not pay any 
attention to what you were saying, and the 


11 AND SO WE’LL DRIFT ” 57 

judge looked sternly at you. You spoke on 
and on, — oh! so long; but the jurymen’s 
eyes told you that she would he convicted, 
and then you shrieked out in passionate 
cries, and the judge rose in his seat and put 
a black cap on his head and pointed his fin- 
ger at you and said , 4 He has broken the 
faith,’ and then I awoke. It was an odd 
dream, was it not ?” 

“ Very,” he said, thinking what a queer 
little woman she was. “ I don’t think the 
dream will come true, though, for I fear, in 
the first place, I will never he a great lawyer.” 

“ But,” she interrupted, “ that would make 
it true, too, because, then, you would have 
broken your faith with yourself. I know you 
can he if you try.” 

lie shook his head thoughtfully, and, — 
“ Have you had breakfast yet ?” he asked ; 
“ and, please, may I sit at your table ? Every- 
body else is through, I think.” 

Of course she could not refuse, and, ani- 


58 


THREE DAYS. 


mated by tbe influence of a large black- 
mail, tbe waiter presently brought them a 
breakfast that they pronounced excellent; 
though with the soft air from the ocean en- 
treating them through the open window, 
perhaps they were too well satisfied with each 
other to complain of potatoes and chops. 

It is chances like this that so shortly 
develop acquaintances into lovers. They 
breakfast together, they tennis together, 
they bathe together, they dine together, 
they sail together, they sup together, they 
dance together, they moonlight together, 
they flirt together, they love together, and 
then — and then, do they marry withal or 
part withal? 

“We will bathe this morning, will we 
not?” he asked, when they could no longer de- 
lay rising. He slipped~easily into the plural. 

“If mamma will let me, and I suppose 
she must,” she laughed, “ since I am to have 
my life-preserver with me.” 


“AND SO WE’LL DRIFT.” 59 

He waited for her, and they went down to 
the Casino together. 

Here were many taking their morning de- 
coctions and listening to the music. The 
unanimity with which everybody drank 
liquor, in some form or other, was start- 
ling, considering the fact that this was a 
prohibition State; hut perhaps there was 
lurking in it the flavor of the juice of the 
forbidden fruit, and this it was that made 
the habit so delightful and universal. 

They joined Margaret Lee and some 
friends by her invitation; and signalling 
Ashton to a chair next her, she said, with a 
possible concealed feeling in her tone, — 

“ You did not come to the dance last 
night, Mr. Ashton?” 

He looked at her lazily, his head thrown 
hack and ihis eyes narrowed to a mere line ; 
a look under which she grew restless, and 
needs must turn away. He had never known 
a woman, rich or poor, young or old, who 


60 


THREE DAYS. 


was not more ruled by the influence of 
properly applied will than by the most lov- 
ing persuasionj and certainly there was 
nothing to be gained by letting this one 
dictate to him at so early a stage of their 
acquaintance. 

“We have so many of those things in the 
winter/' he said, “ I get tired of them, don’t 
you?” 

“ Sometimes,” she answered, a little ner- 
vously; “but last night was really nice.” 
And, in defence of herself, she enlarged 
upon the charming time she had had. 

“You are all to go with me on the yacht 
this afternoon,” Colonel McAlpin said, as he 
passed with Mrs. Yan Guilt on their way to 
the beach. “ If the wind holds, it will be 
the best day we have had this season.” 

“ Prohibition on board,” — from Margaret 
Lee. 

“ Ho ; high license,” he replied. 

“How many are going?” asked Jessie 


“AND SO WE’LL DRIFT.” 01 

Brooks, charming in a blouse tennis suit and 
visored cap. 

“ Everybody we want ; there is room 
enough for all.” 

“How about bathing this morning?” 
asked Margaret Lee, presently, looking at 
Ashton ; but he had moved his chair back 
and was talking to Catharine Forbes in low 
words, which she tried, in vain, to overhear. 

“ I say we go, by all means, now,” Henry 
Brooks answered, glaring over at Ashton, 
whom he was hating most cordially. 

There was a general movement and prepa- 
ration for the beach, and they all arose. 

“ Kate, may I speak with you a minute ?” 
Brooks said. 

She was still in conversation with Ashton, 
but on this he left her side for a moment, 
and found himself in a very easy manner 
the prey of Margaret Lee, Ilarcourt having 
marched off with Miss Brooks. 

Ashton, after standing for a few minutes 
6 




62 


THREE DAYS. 


with Margaret Lee and seeing no chance of 
joining Catharine again, proposed that they 
go to the beach. Truly, he did not care 
much. He knew the girl, who would follow, 
would not think less of him because he was 
leaning over and talking in such an inter- 
ested way with this handsome woman. 

And thus it happened that down on the 
beach, seeing how he was hurting her, he 
continued as a cruel sport what had really 
begun as an accident, and walked, swam, 
dived, and took the breakers with Marga- 
ret Lee as though she were the only woman 
he cared for in the world. He even excelled 
himself in interest, and she was exultantly 
sure he would not be able to resist her fasci- 
nation; while the way he talked into her 
eyes and the low tones of his voice spoke 
what seemed the truth to her. This sort of 
thing was all old to him; yet, now, there 
was a new excitement in his heart. Could 
he be really in love with this sweet-faced 


“AND SO WE'LL DRIFT. 


63 


little woman who told him to he a good boy 
and was filled with all the freshness and 
girlish jealousy and hate of a rival, that she 
did not admit to her heart and yet which 
she was so ill able to conceal from him? 

Even had Catharine been with a man of 
new interest, his attentions could not have 
diverted her; but with Henry Brooks, of 
whom she often tired without reason, and 
now positively hated, she was openly miser- 
able, and treated him, he said, “Like a 
dog.” 

But he was a patient fellow, and never 
answered her in kind when she made cruel 
remarks. He made, however, the often mis- 
take of lovers who are snubbed ; too ready 
in sacrifice, he took no opportunity to make 
himself wanted, but warmly embraced all 
those when he was not. Hot that we would 
advise a man to absolutely slight a woman 
under such conditions, but merely to adopt 
a studied and careful carelessness. 


64 


THREE DAYS. 


Wringing the water out of her hair, in 
the bath-room, Catharine Forbes said to her- 
self, “ All he said to me the whole morning, 
as he swam by with Margaret, was, ‘ The 
water is nice and warm, is it not V ” And 
some of the briny drops that rolled down 
her face were other than those of the 
sea. 

“ Did you have a nice bath ?” he flung to 
her, when she came out, as he passed up the 
beach, still with Margaret Lee. 

“FTo,” she said to herself, after dinner, 
“ I will not go on the sail this afternoon ; I 
know I shall not enjoy it: it is too hot.” 
She sought a secluded corner of the piazza, 
where the breezes came whispering in from 
the sea, and held book before her face and 
turned the pages over and over and read not 
a word, but thought whether he would stay 
with Margaret all the afternoon, and what 
he would say to her; and what a hateful 
man he was. 


“AND SO WE’LL DRIFT.” (ft 

Presently she was conscious that some one 
was coming along the piazza towards her, 
and her heart was heating to suffocation; 
she would not look up, she hated him so, 
and then his voice, gently, — 

“ I was cruel this morning. Forgive me ; 
I am a brute.” 

In vain to try and greet him, Catharine 
Forbes, with any look of astonishment ; his 
eyes are too well trained in bravery of reply. 
He did not love you the less because you 
had no stereotyped stony glare and ques- 
tion, “ Cruel ? I don’t know what you 
mean,” but turned away and by your 
silence admitted it all. Unless you could 
have concealed it from the beginning, any 
defence would have been idle. 

“ They are going down to the yacht, and 
your mother tells me you will not go. You 
will come, will you not ? Some may think 
it strange, if you do not ; others would be 
glad ; and one would be so sorry and disap- 


66 


THREE DAYS. 


pointed that he would find no pleasure in 
it all.” 

Gossip, jealousy, and love, any one of 
these enough to have made her go, for he 
did not intend to fail ; and well pleased with 
himself at his success, by the time they 
reached the pier she had, under the persua- 
sion of his voice, almost forgotten how dif- 
ferent it had all seemed half an hour ago. 

The “ Jane” was a schooner-rigged yacht 
of considerable dimensions, and the roomy 
decks and cabins offered many places where 
the guests could draw apart together, if such 
an expression is allowable; to he plain, 
there were lots of nice places for “ talk- 
ing,” and they were not neglected. 

Captain McAlpin, as he was now called, 
in the glory of his professional naval cos- 
tume, was so excited that he sometimes 
stopped in the middle of a sentence for half 
a minute, struggling for the rest; he had 
taken the wheel himself, and, as they swung 


MAlpiH 







“AND SO WE’LL DRIFT.” 67 

off before a steady full-sail breeze, Margaret 
Lee thought she had never seen a handsomer 
or more gallant commander, while a feeling 
of true tenderness for him came to her. 
He had such a high-bred face, that com- 
bined all the beauties of a race of cultured 
ancestors. His nose was long and straight, 
the lines of his head refined, and his eyes, 
as he watched the course of his boat, clear 
and honest. 

Banjos and guitars had been brought 
aboard, and many choruses were sung, with 
more or less effect. Ashton had an excellent 
barytone voice and sustained many of the 
songs by his efforts. 

Presently, several of the guests, individ- 
ually, were called upon, and Margaret Lee 
said, a little tauntingly, perhaps, — 

“What a pity you did not bring your 
mandolin, Kate ! you could have sung for 
us.” 

“ One of my sailors, an old Spaniard, has 


68 


THREE DAYS. 


one, I think,” Captain McAlpin said, over- 
hearing the conversation. 

And when it was brought there was no 
way of escape. It was much soiled and 
worn, and not of a good tone; however, 
Catharine managed to get some music out 
of it. First she played a Spanish dance, 
which caused the owner of the instrument 
to smile with delight, and then she sang 
to its accompaniment a plaintive song that 
kept them silent. There was something in 
her voice like that of one whose heart is 
touched by sorrow that will not go away. 

“ I wonder if she is conscious how pretty 
she is ?” Ashton thought, as he watched her 
fingers touch the strings, and tried in vain 
to catch her eyes, which were cast down on 
the mandolin, held against her heart, heat- 
ing foolishly with the unusual excitement of 
singing before so many people. 

lie felt in the depths of his soul that 
desire to have her for his own, to he always 


“AND SO WE'LL DRIFT." 69 

by her, where he might watch over her for- 
ever, — that wish to protect her from trouble, 
to see that the impurities of the world did 
not come near her, which is always so much 
a part of the truest affection. 

Slowly she raised her long lashes and 
looked over at him. Did she catch that ten- 
derness in his eyes which was at his heart ? 
She flushed painfully, and would not, for 
all the entreaties of the men or the veiled 
jealousy of the women, sing again. 

“ I think I like you better than I did,” 
Jessie Brooks said, as she and Ashton stood 
on the bow, leaning over and watching the 
water foam beneath the figure-head. 

u Then, if you have outgrown your dislike 
in one day, may you not truly adore me in 
three ?” 

“ Stranger things have occurred.” 

“ But you don’t like me as well as Har- 
court, do you?” 

a hTo, — no; but, then, he is different. 


70 


THREE DAYS. 


"Would you like to know why I have 
changed ?” 

“Most certainly.” 

“ Well, I think you do as you please, with- 
out regard to the people who make remarks. 
I do it myself, and I guess that’s why I 
admire it in others.” 

“You honor me too much;” yet, while 
he could not talk confidences with this girl, 
it pleased him mightily that she had spoken 
like this ; and so odd is human nature that 
perhaps the sincere admiration of this child 
for the independence which he had shown 
indefinitely added something to his love for 
Catharine Forbes. 

While they were standing talking, and 
finding in each other interest that they had 
not thought of before, the yacht put about, 
and a puff coming at the time, the jib 
flapped over with such force as to break one 
of the eye-holts, and a block swung across 
would have struck Jessie Brooks had Ashton 


AND SO WE’LL DRIFT. 


71 


not jumped forward and caught it. As it 
was, it hit him in the leg and almost floored 
him, leaving him with a limp from which 
it took him some time to recover. 

“ I am sure that would have killed me if 
you had not stopped it.” 

“ Well, you see the use of making a friend 
of me ; now, half an hour ago I should have 
let it strike you and enjoyed seeing you 
die.” 

“I hope it will be my turn to have my 
life saved next,” Miss Lee smiled, when they 
came hack to the group on the after-deck. 

“ Oh, you will not need help,” Ashton 
replied; “ you are too delightfully strong; 
you can save yourself, you know.” 

He was strictly polite, nor was there the 
slightest trace of disrespect in his tones, yet 
Margaret felt that her little note of sarcasm 
had been noticed, and knew that the answer 
was meant as a reply to it. 

“ You two .... don’t get on very well to- 


72 


THREE DAYS. 


gether, do you?” the colonel said to her 
when they were alone. “To tell you the 
truth, Margaret, Morris is sometimes very 
intractable, and you never get anything out 
of him hy trying to say things to hurt him, 
or answering hack.” 

“ Oh, you must not mind what we say,” 
she said; “we are awfully good friends.” 

Despite Colonel McAlpin’s advice, she 
could not resist the temptations of sarcasm, 
for she knew her stabs were felt; Ashton 
was a strong man, hut too easily susceptible 
to the influence of blood and the world. 

As the evening came on the breeze died 
out, and while they floated listlessly into 
the harbor supper was served; afterwards 
Catharine Forbes and Ashton made their 
way to the bowsprit and sat on a coil of 
rope, quite out over the water. 

The waves grew purple in the light from 
the west and lit with gay prismatic colors, 
while the cottages and hotels far away 


“ AND SO WE'LL DRIFT." 73 

glowed with red and gold and crimson, and 
seemed to these two like the halls of some 
magical city sprung from the sea. 

“ Do you think that the streets are paved 
with gold ?” she asked, without looking at 
him. “Are the houses filled with all the 
beautiful things we long for in life, and will 
our hopes come out to meet us, robed in 
purple and fine linen, and as true as we 
have dreamed of them?” 

“Do you wish for so many things?” he 
asked. “Your life must have been free 
from all sorrow.” 

“I have not suffered what people usu- 
ally call sorrow, such as the loss of money, 
home, and things like that, and I was too 
young to know what death was when my 
father died.” She looked far into the sun- 
set, that lit her face with a soft glow. 

“ What is it, then ?” he asked, softly. 
“ Tell me, will you not ?” 

“ Did you ever have your heart filled with 
D 7 


74 


THREE DAYS. 


a vague wish to be something to yourself; 
to feel that life was more to you than eat- 
ing and sleeping; to feel that indefinite up- 
lifting towards the true and good, while all 
the time, as you looked ahead, you saw only 
the mists of uncertainty? So I feel at 
times, even though my life has been so with- 
out trouble.” 

How unconsciously came those girlish 
thoughts, which he knew, so well, were 
the longings after the deep love which 
would make her a woman! 

He spoke to her in answer with earnest 
heart, his voice falling upon her ears in 
that soft summer-time as never a man’s had 
done before, or other might do again. 

Float through the purple sea, O fairy 
pleasure-boat, with listless sails, tired with 
their labor, drifting you into the haven 
where you would he ! Chant on, 0 singers, 
while the halo of dying day is about you ; 
sing your sweetest, saddest song, for the 


“AND SO WE'LL DRIFT.” 


75 


light on land and sea never was before, — 
never can be again quite the same, and to 
listening hearts your voices are of those who 
carol to a new-born day ! 

And Ashton looked and saw this girl to 
be so fair, so pure, so good, an awe came 
upon his heart, new to him, and he laid his 
hand over her own, which was by him on 
the coil of rope, and “ Kate, I love you,” he 
said. 

After a little the glow of the sunset died, 
and the sea was gray and the houses dim 
and unnatural in the coming of the night ; 
and the moon rose fair over the land, and 
by her soft light, blended with that of the 
dying day, the boat came to anchor. 

And some one was humming, with the 
guitar as an accompaniment, — 

“ Oh, love for a year, a week, a day, 

But alas for the love that loves alway.” 


CHAPTER Y. 


“go in with me to dinner.” 

“ And I thought, come glory or come distress, 

In this wonderful, weary wilderness, 

This hour is mine to the day of death ; 

The fruit, the wine, and my lady fair, 

With a flower of the heath in her dim, hrown hair, 
And a sigh of love in her fragrant breath.” 


“ I tell you, Morris, you don’t know a 
good thing when you see it. How there’s 
Margy Lee, you don’t half appreciate her.” 

So the colonel called to him through the 
open door-way between their rooms, while 
they were dressing after the sail. It was a 
habit of his to talk while he wandered about, 
swearing at all his articles of dress in the 
order in which he might want them. 

“ My dear fellow, exactly the same thing 

76 


“ GO IN WITH ME TO DINNER.” 77 

you said to me this morning,” Morris Ash- 
ton answered. 

“ You think you have an easy conquest 
.... in Catharine Forbes, hut you had better 
he on your .... guard. Young Brooks is 
an old friend, and they say he has an under- 
standing with her, and, after she has had 

enough of society, she is to she is to 

.... settle down with him.” 

“ Some of Margaret Lee’s gossip, told 
that it might he repeated to me,” Ashton 
thought, hut he only said, “Very likely 
true; I hope so, for I think they are wonder- 
fully well suited to each other, so far as I 
can tell from my limited observation.” 

He felt a touch of jealousy at this vague 
report, which he told himself was quite 
amusing. Was this child playing with him ? 
Ho! impossible; there was nothing of the 
coquette in her nature. 

Still, it worried him, and would not leave 
his thoughts. “ Curse it all,” he said to 
7 * 


78 


THREE DAYS. 


himself, “ have I gone hack to callow youth 
again, that rumor like this, about a girl that 
I have just met, can stir me so‘? I will ask 
her if it is true ; she will not deceive me ?” 

“ From careful inquiries I have made .... 
I am sure Miss Lee is worth at least seven 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars in her 
own right,” the colonel continued, like 
all determined match-makers, never to be 
driven from his theme. “ You will make 
the greatest mistake of your life if you 
don’t try for her. I really believe she likes 
you already, although you .... hardly treat 
her civilly.” 

“ She is a spoiled woman, and therefore 
she likes me because of my attitude towards 
her. If I knelt it would be all over with me.” 

“Don’t talk like that, my boy; you do 
not know her ; she is one of the nicest and 
brightest girls in the world.” 

“It is not often you are so enthusiastic 
over one of the sex; why is it?” 


“ GO IN WITH ME TO DINNER 79 

“ Because I cannot bear to see a man de- 
liberately throw away bis chances. Money 
and social position are the things you must 
have, Morris; you can do nothing without 
them. You can never make a name for 
yourself as a lawyer. Why? because you 
spend too much time on Society, and you 
have grown such a slave to her that, left to 
yourself, you can never break the chains she 
has bound about you. With the requisites, 
you will certainly become a social leader, 
and this fine mistress of yours, who flirts 
you and treats you so cavalierly, will come 
bowing and cringing at your feet, — you will 
wear the crown, and she the shackles, and 
you will be as happy as we may be in this 
mud-hole of a world.” 

“Perhaps I am tired of all the foolish 
race for wealth and position, and would 
rather bear my burdens than win freedom 
at a price you have not named.” 

The colonel came quite into the room 


80 


THREE DAYS. 


now, and, holding np a patent-leather shoe 
by the toe, shook it vigorously. 

“ Taking your best view of it, what will 
your income he five years from now, when 
you will he nearer forty than thirty ? Will 
it he enough for you to marry whom you 
please and live in a way that will not kill 
your artistic senses and make you sour and 
old before your time? Look on the two 
pictures; is there more than one way for 
you ?” 

“ Did you ever know me to do anything 
you asked me to ?” Ashton said, by way of 
answer. 

“ Never,” the colonel replied. 

“ Then let us go down and have a drink 
before we go to the Casino. I believe I am 
to have the pleasure of taking your paragon 
to dinner there.” 

Tie felt the full truth of what his friend 
had said ; hut no one should dictate to him. 
Eicher women than Margaret Lee might 


11 GO IN WITH ME TO DINNER” 81 

be had if it was to be as his friend had 
said; and he wondered what had become 
of the letter he had received that day. 

“ I am afraid yon don’t like me, for some 
reason or other,” Margaret Lee said, as she 
walked down to the Casino with him. Henry 
Brooks had asked them to a small dinner, 
and they were on their way thither. 

“ She makes a mistake in speaking so to 
me,” Ashton thought. “ She should com- 
mand, not beg. Perhaps she wishes me to 
think she is saying, ( Oh, I am so hurt that 
you do not care.’ She has been too long 
in the world, and is too muscular to play 
the ingenue .” However, he said, “ How little 
we can judge others’ feelings by what we 
see on short acquaintance! I admire you 
most sincerely, and I have nothing but good 
thoughts of you.” 

“ The reason, I suppose, why we neither 
of us like the other is because we were 
told we would before we met,” she went on, 


82 


THREE DAYS. 


somewhat ignoring his last remark. “If 
you want to make enemies for life, tell two 
people who have never met that they will 
like each other immensely; dilate upon all 
their good qualities; be perfectly certain 
they will he absolutely congenial ; and then 
let them meet where they can see each other 
every day.” 

For the first time, Morris Ashton felt a 
liking for this girl, who spoke so freely, for 
he knew that, if she was a little hard, she 
was at least honest. He laughed openly, 
and said, — 

“ Let me add that, if you wish to see the 
best friends in the world, take the same two 
people, let them confess the truth to each 
other, and then start anew and make up 
their own opinions, without regard to preju- 
dices excited beforehand by heedless per- 
sons.” 

How they fell into a conversation, easy 
and natural, and found in each other much 


“ OO IN WITH ME TO DINNER 83 

to like; so that by the time dinner was 
served they were on such terms that Cath- 
arine Forbes, by the side of her host, across 
the table, felt strange and quiet when she 
looked at them. 

There is a peculiar cruelty in the hearts of 
all men, and of most women, when they love, 
which cannot he explained by the fact that 
its results show that they are loved by the 
one they torture, or that it tests the question 
of mastery between them. It is too wanton 
for that. It is a brute feeling of the same 
kind as that which causes some children to 
delight in maiming and worrying animals, — 
why, they cannot explain, and the more suf- 
fering they see the more they delight to in- 
flict. Something of this in Ashton’s nature 
caused him to display a devotion to Mar- 
garet Lee which even his newly-found liking 
for her in no way required, and he leaned 
and talked confidentially, now and then, 
while she laughed her replies, often loud 


84 


THREE DAYS. 


enough for Catharine Forbes to hear, hut 
too ambiguous for her to do more than im- 
agine that they meant far more than they 
did. 

Henry Brooks, poor fellow, who had got- 
ten up the dinner in hopes it might please 
Catharine, was seriously hurt when he saw 
that she could not enjoy it. She tried so 
hard to he pleasant, to make it a success; 
hut to do so, under the circumstances, re- 
quired an amount of deceit of which she 
was not yet capable, and she could only 
plead a headache after the heat of the sail 
that afternoon. This he knew was not the 
reason, and cursed inwardly. Hext to them, 
Jessie Brooks was propounding a conun- 
drum to the colonel: 

“ Why is a man with a pleasure-boat the 
most discontented man in the world ?” 

“ Because people don’t care anything for 
his parties.” 

“Hot for fishing-parties by the captain, 



JESSIE. 



“ GO IN WITH ME TO DINNER §5 

afterwards. Ho; the answer is because he 
may have all his friends on hoard, yacht he 
is not happy.” 

Several of the guests groaned, hut Cath- 
arine Forbes was far away from it all. Could 
this man he so false? What had he told 
her at twilight to-day, and what might he 
have said more, had she not stopped him ? 

And now Oh, why had Henry wanted 

this tiresome dinner ? Why could she not 
go home and he alone, away from these 
people, who only enjoyed themselves to an- 
noy her? He would not look at her, and 
forever smiled at that woman who made 
such love to him. She was not conscious 
how new were all these hitter thoughts to 
her, and that it was the sorrow of love which 
held her so close as to stifle her. 

“ I am very sorry, Kate, that you are so 
tired,” Brooks said, bending over her ten- 
derly. 

“ I am not tired ; and please don’t bother 
8 


86 


THREE DAYS. 


me,” she answered, wearily. She did not 
appreciate, until long afterwards, what a 
comfort it was to have one by her side 
whom she knew so well that she might 
treat him as her humor liked, without of- 
fence. 

“ This winter you must come on and see 
me in Boston; it is such a short distance, 
you know,” she overheard Margaret Lee 
say. She could not catch Ashton’s reply, 
but he must have been promising much, 
he talked so earnestly and leaned so close. 

At last dinner was over, and, with her 
mother and Henry Brooks, she went back to 
the hotel, most of the other guests staying 
to hear the last number of the evening’s 
music. 

“It would have been better had I not 
given the dinner,” Henry Brooks said to 
Mrs. Forbes, after Catharine had gone up- 
stairs. “ Kate did not enjoy it at all. She 
scarcely even likes me, I sometimes think.” 


“ GO IN WITH ME TO DINNER” 87 

Mrs. Forbes loved this boy, he was so 
strong and wholesome. She had done all 
she could for him with her daughter before 
they went abroad, but it was worse than use- 
less. Catharine had laughed and said she 
never thought of such things, — that Henry 
was her big brother and never could be 
anything else. 

So they had parted, and now he had come 
here to meet them on their return. She 
saw he was changed. Something of the 
thoughtfulness of the man there was about 
him, and his step was more deliberate and 
his manners less boyish. 

He could tell his mind now without halt- 
ing or stumbling over his words. For his 
great physical strength he was the admira- 
tion of women ; but, unaffected, and caring 
so little for any one save Catharine, he had 
passed it by quite unharmed. 

“ What has life for us when we live only 
for a woman ?” he said to himself, bitterly. 


88 


THREE DAYS. 


“ And what is sacrifice, or watchfulness, or 
thoughtful tenderness, when the reward 
thereof, in reality, as well as in our own 
hearts, is only vanity ?” From which it 
may be seen that he, too, was drinking of 
the hitter cup of the sorrows of love. 

Mrs. Forbes did her best to cheer him 
and make him hopeful. 

“Time,” she said, “will show Catharine 
that she loves you; so do not give up. We 
are none of us proof against a well-laid 
siege, and all women dearly love an un- 
daunted man. But don’t let her actually 
tread upon you, Harry : he independent and 
strong, and I believe, dear hoy, all will come 
out right in the end.” 

And with this and a stroll in the moon- 
light under Catharine’s window he was 
obliged to he content. 

But she, sitting there in her dressing- 
gown, her long hair about her white shoul- 
ders, did not see him or care that he was 


“GO IN WITH ME TO DINNER .” gg 

there. She turned out the light, and 
opened the window wide to look out at the 
moonlit sea. It was in a jeering mood to- 
night ; the surf fell on the rocks with a dull, 
sullen splash now and then, to die with a 
shiver that almost annoyed her. But the 
breeze, — how cool it was, and how softly 
and modestly it kissed her white bosom and 
whispered in her ears its messages, sad, 
yet so full of meaning! 

“ How I hate him ! ” she thought. “He 
must have a had heart to say such things 
to me, and then, an hour afterwards, behave 
so outrageously with that horrid Margaret 
Lee. Some women are never contented un- 
less they can make other people unhappy.” 

But the breezes would not have her think 
such thoughts, and kept whispering in her 
ears, — 

“How kind he is when he is by you! 
how careful of the little tendernesses of life ! 
and his voice is so low, and he understands 
8 * 


90 


THREE DAYS. 


all your thoughts before they are spoken. 
Sorrow and pain are open hooks to him, 
and when he takes your hand, his grasp is 
so strong you know he is your master ; and 
when his breath is in your hair ” 

“ I told you, my dear hoy, you would like 

her ” and she was conscious that the 

man she thought of was on the balcony off 
the colonel’s room below her. She could 
not choose hut hear. 

“I never spent a more enjoyable even- 
ing,” his voice said, and then she flew from 
the window to bed, and covered her head 
and sobbed. 

For a long time she lay there tossing, 
while the voices of the two men talking 
below came to her like the murmurs of the 
sick-room to the convalescent on first wak- 
ing from dreamland ; and then all was quiet, 
and the loving breeze again sought her, 
and, seeing her lying there still and sor- 
rowful, one tiny white foot hanging over 


“ GO IN WITH ME TO DINNER .” 91 

the side of the bed, and the dark hair 
tangled over the pillow, pitied her and 
offered sympathy and comfort. It bore to 
her the salty tears of the ocean ; and, as she 
fell asleep, it whispered in her ears of a day 
when all would he well. 


CHAPTER VI. 


“I PRYTHEE TO OUR ROCK.” 

“Do you remember it, darling, I wonder, 

Do you remember so long, long ago, 

All that we said as we strolled there together 
Out on the rocks when the tide was low?” 

“ Good-morning, Mr. Ashton.” There 
was a slight touch of defiance in the voice, 
and a look from the dark eyes sad rather 
than hitter, as Catharine Forbes passed him 
in the dining-room next morning. 

Was it some unthought-of touch of co- 
quetry that made her wear her most charm- 
ing gown? He thought she had never 
seemed sweeter: such a haughty way of 
carrying her head at times, and her figure 
so dainty and straight. 

He was among the last at breakfast, and 
92 


“7 PRYTHEE TO OUR ROCK.” 93 

the colonel, who finished his coffee just as 
his friend came in, left him at once, to join 
Margaret Lee, who was on the piazza out- 
side ; and then Catharine Forbes had passed 
to her table, quite across the room, where 
she sat alone, reading a book she had 
brought with her, and now and then look- 
ing up from its pages to glance out at the 
ocean. 

“I wonder,” he thought, “what she is 
reading, — and if the words convey any 
meaning to her, or whether she is thinking 
of me, — kindly.” 

Sitting here alone, at the most prosaic of 
all meals, and with an appetite dulled by the 
dinner of the evening before, he could not, 
even under these unfavorable conditions, 
look at this girl without a feeling of passion 
for her, — a longing at his heart so strong 
that he was almost ashamed. It seemed 
childish and unlike him to be thus affected 
by one unversed as a school-girl in those 


94 


THREE DAYS. 


arts of pleasing tliat some women know too 
well, and very far removed from those who 
had made up his life for many years past. 
And yet it was true ! He was so used to self- 
analysis that he quite realized the strength 
of his own feelings. 

She looked across, and caught his eyes 
full in her own. 

Over the white tables, where yet some 
of the half-finished morning repasts lay 
unremoved, — between the waiters, who went 
about, a little impatient at the delay of these 
late-comers, — yes, in this desolate, annoying 
breakfast-room, their eyes met in a look of 
mutual knowledge that they neither of them 
could resist. 

Call to him, bright eyes, with that far look 
of yours; out of the depths of a woman’s 
soul, reproach him, defy him, love him, and 
he will come to you! 

His words were quite commonplace: 

“ I hope you are faring better than last 


“7 PRYTHEE TO OUR ROCK." 95 

evening. Did you not enjoy it? It was 
excellently well served, I thought, hut you 
ate nothing.” 

“No,” — indifferently; “my head ached 
horribly after the sail in the afternoon, and 
this is a tiresome sort of place; and the 
people are like the place, — aren’t they?” 

He was certain, now, that she was hurt 
because of his attentions to Margaret Lee 
the night before, and was trying to he cold, 
— to take on some of the careful dignity 
that she was fearing she had forgotten; 
and the longing at his heart to win hack 
the brightness to her face grew deeper. 
He had asked Margaret Lee to bathe with 
him that morning, but, as he saw her now, 
through the open window, going down 
towards the Casino with the colonel, he 
made up his mind that he would make her 
failure to wait for him the reason for avoid- 
ing his engagement * should it so please him. 

He recognized the fact that an offended 


96 


THREE DAYS. 


woman likes anything better than silence, 
and, feeling that before he spoke he must 
establish their old relations, he at once began, 
in a way that Catharine could not resist, to 
bring her mind nnconscionsly into other 
channels. He spoke of the place, of the 
people, of a thousand-and-one things about 
them which were of interest, in such a forci- 
ble, half-humorous way that it was hut a 
little while ere she was laughing with a 
gayety that could come only from a heart 
free from bitterness. 

Suddenly he said to her, as if knowing 
that she must acknowledge his mastery, — 

“You were cold to me just now ; and yet, 
you see, without an explanation, your heart 
is clear again.” 

How pleasant it was to know the power 
he had over her, that might have galled a 
worldly or less sympathetic woman ! She 
did not speak, but looked out of the window 
at the sea, and became serious once more. 


“7 PRYTHEE TO OUR ROCK 


97 


“But I have things to say to you, and 
questions to ask of you, on different matters 
than these. Will you go to the rocks with 
me this morning ?” 

“Why should we not talk here?” she 
said, doubtfully, not daring to turn her eyes 
towards him, lest her feeble defence should 
be at once overthrown. 

“ Because I want to be with you all the 
morning undisturbed. Don’t refuse. Life 
is short ; the day is God’s own ; we may be 
gone to-morrow, and our hearts will be filled 
with vain regrets.” 

She turned towards him, suddenly, with a 
little shake of her head and a half smile on 
her lips. 

“Well, then, yes, of course I will go; 
what is the use of saying no?” 

She was wondering what it meant, that 
this man had but to say a few words to her 
and she forgot everything save her desire to 
be near him. She was used to taking care 
e g 9 


98 


THREE DAYS 


of herself, yet here was one who was so 
much stronger of purpose that, after meet- 
ing him two or three times, his will con- 
trolled her coming and going as easily as 
if he had been her only guide. She could 
not know, quite, why thus it was ; but, since 
she was happy with him and had this long- 
ing to see him, to talk with him, why not 
give up her foolish resolves for his wishes ? 

Thus it was she went with him ; but Ash- 
ton noticed the doubt in her eyes and the 
trace of sadness that was like love’s unwept 
tears. 

Young Brooks, by the side of the widow, 
who had come to call on his mother and had 
then invited him to drive down to the beach 
with her, saw Ashton and Catharine Forbes 
depart with sorrow and anger in his soul : 

“ Confound it, why can’t he take out Mrs. 
Yan Guilt, here, who is probably dying for 
him, instead of Kate? What can she see 
in a man like that, anyhow ?” 


«/ PRYTHEE TO OUR ROCK” 99 

Out from the cluster of hotels, in a direc- 
tion away from the Casino and the beach, 
was a long, low point of land, ending in a 
rocky shore, over which the sea surged and 
sighed as if mourning that it could not clasp 
the slippery boulders and drag them hack 
into its depths. Here, on the great rocks, 
there were many places arranged by the 
kindly ocean, where the wanderers, who 
came in careless twos, never hurrying, and 
always stopping by the way to look into 
each other’s eyes, might rest unheard, and, 
by the aid sometimes of an umbrella, quite 
unseen. 

Whether we have fixed to speak of pain, 
or even of pleasure, if we have named a 
spot where the converse is to he, we are 
loath to touch the subject until we arrive 
at that particular place ; this, perhaps, was 
why Catharine Forbes and Ashton talked 
of everything save what was serious on their 
way thither. 


100 


THREE DAYS. 


Until this morning she had been quite un- 
familiar with the lighter side of his nature, 
for pleasure, desire, or chance had willed it 
that they had spoken only of the graver 
things of life. Now it was for Ashton to 
show her how well he might he humorous, 
and still retain his dignity, while she knew 
from his tender ways that the thought in 
his heart was of his love for her. 

Then, as they stood on a rock far above 
the tide-line, and Catharine looked out to 
the sea, where a white-sailed yacht drifted 
lazily over the bay, she said, softly, thinking 
of his conversation at breakfast, — 

“ Do you really mean to go away soon ?” 

“ I can never tell exactly when I may be 
called. Is there one, I wonder, who would 
care ?” 

ISTo reply from her lips, and her eyes, still 
seaward. 

“ Why were you offended this morning ? 
Have I done anything wrong?” 


WHITE-SAILED YACHT DRIFTED LAZILY OVER THE BAY. 







“J PRYTHEE TO OUR ROCK.” 101 

It was hard for her to reply. What could 
she say had displeased her? 

“I am not angry with you,” she an- 
swered, finally. “I only thought you did 
not care whether I was so or not.” 

“If what I heard last night about you 
were true, I should not care much,” he said. 

She- turned to him with surprised eyes 
and a ring of rising anger in her voice: 

“Well, what was it?” 

“ They say you are engaged, or have what 
is called an understanding with young 
Brooks.” 

“Well, and if it were true?” she said, 
slowly and defiantly. “Why not?” 

“Eo reason, save that I do not wish to 
encroach upon another man’s rights in this 
way.” And he looked at her half quizzi- 
cally, she thought. 

“ Since when did you become so careful 
of other men’s rights regarding women, 
Mr. Ashton ?” 


9 * 


102 


THREE DAYS. 


“Believe me,” lie answered, “I am cer- 
tain tliat the report is not true ; but, if it 
were so, I would not wish to see you accept- 
ing attention from any other than the one to 
whom your promises were given. It would 
not he right; and, whatever any one else 
may do, you must follow out your truth. 
You remember what you told me ? — ‘ I have 
fought the good fight ; for the rest 5 ” 

This recollection of his, with the evident 
sincerity in his wishes for her, removed the 
last vestige of trouble between them, and 
she told him of the true state of things 
about herself and Henry Brooks; her ac- 
count of him was so pathetic that Ashton, 
world-hardened though he was, felt that 
a noble heart was opposed to him here. 
What mattered it, though, since she cared 
for Morris Ashton now, and it was summer- 
time, and they were together, and he loved 
her? 

He told her of himself, freely, in a way he 


“I PRYTHEE TO OUR ROCK. ,J 103 

had never done any other woman, even in 
his most unguarded or loving moments. 

“ What folly,” he said, “ to say that the 
whirl of society destroys our feelings ! If I 
prayed to-day, it would he for only one 
thing in life, — that you might he happy; 
yet you say I am worldly, and certainly I 
have known you too short a time to make 
my prayer seem sincere.” 

His reward was a look that told him she 
did believe all he said. Wandering over the 
rocks, they stopped now and then, to linger 
and look into each other’s faces and read 
there thoughts that lips might not speak. 

Finally, in the crevice of a large boulder, 
they found a spot protected from the sun’s 
rays, and of such a form that they could 
half recline, with a stony support, — a rest- 
ing-place somewhat hard, hut very com- 
fortable after their walk. 

Was ever a morning like this? 

To her it seemed as if all the joys of life 


104 


THREE DAYS. 


were here by the side of this strong, easy 
man, who forced her to believe him ; and to 
him there was about this child a sense of 
pleasure so delicate that he thought of 
things long forgotten and felt better for the 
thinking. 

How her face lit up when he told her by 
his manner, by his eyes, by the tones of his 
voice, the tale he had told often before, but 
never to a woman like this ! There was 
more than the sweetness of childhood about 
her that drew him on ; it was the attraction 
of her soft, loving ways, with that unknown 
depth of a woman’s unawaked passion. 

“ Would you not like to take a fairy boat 
and pass out over those tranquil waters, 
bound for a land where it is always sum- 
mer?” he said. “And then, after strange 
islands had gone by, some night, the purple 
sails lit by the low-hanging lamps of the 
stars, we would lift up our voices in a love- 
song as we drifted in silver seas to the 


“J PRYTHEE TO OUR ROCK.” 105 

harbor of pleasure and forgetfulness and 
eternal youth and saw the moon shining on 
the white walls of the city of love.” 

“ Why will you always talk so ?” she ques- 
tioned. “ You know it is a plea for the less 
beautiful side of our lives; and yet you 
must know how true it sounds to me, when 
you say it so.” 

“ How can that which is pure and sweet 
be evil ?” he asked, gravely. 

“It is the impossible, an appeal to the 
animal of our natures, which drags at the 
soul, always luring us to come and herd with 
it and be even as itself.” 

“Yet it is ever with me. I do so need 
some one at my side, always, to tell me it is 
not true, — that we cannot find the land, even 
if our boat is manned by experience and 
Croesus is in the pilot-house.” 

“Be true to yourself, my friend, and you 
will need no one else,” she said, gravely. 

“ To be that, I must have you,” he said. 


106 


THREE DAYS. 


“ Kate, why will you not listen to me ? You 
must hear it before we part. I love you, — I 
love you. I want you to he with me always. 
What does it matter whether we have known 
each other for a 'year or a day, if it is true, 
and you love no one else?” 

He tried to get her hands in his own, hut 
she rose and turned away. 

“Oh, don’t! do-don’t — don’t! please don’t! 
Hot yet; not now. I must think,” she said, 
and then went down over the rocks with 
him towards the town. 


CHAPTEE VI I. 


“COME UNTO THESE YELLOW SANDS.” 

. “ The yellow sands are fringed with pearl, 

The long surf whitens up the bay, 

And love to them is now so near, 

And all the world so far away.” 

“ I want you all to drive down the beach 
with me this afternoon,” Harcourt said, on 
the piazza, after dinner. “ I have taken two 
coaches, that we may have a jolly big crowd, 
and we can have supper on the sands and he 
back in time for the dance to-night.” 

“You want to tire us out, don’t you?” 
Jessie Brooks said; “hut I guess we can 
stand it, if the men can.” 

The colonel, at the request of Harcourt, 
with whom he was on very good terms, took 
charge of the arrangements, and it was 

107 


108 


THREE DAYS. 


owing to his diplomacy that Ashton found 
himself, during the drive down, by the side 
of Margaret Lee, who was in no very good 
humor. 

“ Mr. Ashton,” she said, “ I am not accus- 
. tomed to have men deliberately break their 
engagements with me, without excuse.” 

“How do you know that I do not have 
one?” 

“ I saw you coming in from the rocks with 
your lady-love.” 

“ Please do not refer to Miss Forbes so,” 
he said, deliberately ; “ not unless you have 
some greater warrant for your remark than 
what you may have seen. As for my en- 
gagement with you this morning, I saw you 
going off with Colonel McAlpin, and con- 
cluded you were tired of me. I am truly 
sorry if I was mistaken.” 

With this she knew she must he content. 

On their arrival at the beach the colonel 
took possession of her, and Ashton felt 


“ COME UNTO THESE YELLOW SANDS.” 109 

vastly relieved. Surely this feeling of utter 
weariness for one so rich and attractive had 
never been his before. Jealousy he had 
known, anger he had felt, and the pulse- 
throb of wild rivalry for women, hut never 
before had there come over his heart such 
dull, sweet longing that made all the world 
tiresome to him, save only one. 

In the coach, Brooks said to Catharine 
Eorbes,— 

“ That widow woman annoys me exceed- 
ingly.” This was his title for Mrs. Van 
Guilt, who so admired his manly figure that 
she would not see how indifferent he was to 
her. “ She wants me to bathe with her, 
ride with her, dance with her, and visit her,” 
he continued. “ But she bores me horribly, 
and I wish she would let me alone. I should 
think that the crowd of men she has always 
about her would be enough for her.” 

But Catharine only looked thoughtfully at 
the sea. 


10 


110 


THREE DAYS. 


“ Where were you this morning?” he 
went on : “I did not see you on the beach 
or at the Casino.” 

“I went walking with Mr. Ashton, on 
the rocks.” 

And then his turn for silence came. 

On their arrival, Mrs. Yan Guilt, glancing 
up at him with her pale-blue eyes from be- 
neath the brim of her white sailor’s hat, 
said, — 

“ Come with me a moment, won’t you ? 
I want you to help me with something.” 

So, perforce, he was led away. 

“ I wish you would come up to my cot- 
tage and take dinner with me, some time,” 
she said. 

“ I should love to,” he answered, quickly, 
as though to prevent her fixing a day, “ but 
I go out but little, and I am far from a suc- 
cess as a conversationist.” 

“But you and I would be quite alone,” 
she said, too sweetly for his liking. “ You 




“ ‘ COME UP TO MY COTTAGE AND TAKE DINNER WITH ME 





“ COME UNTO THESE YELLOW SANDS.” m 

will come, won’t you ? — say Friday, at 
seven.” 

He promised, albeit he made a mental 
reservation that he would certainly be ill on 
the evening named. 

“ Won’t you walk down the beach a little 
way with me?” Harcourt said to Jessie 
Brooks, when he had succeeded, by some 
adroitness, in separating her from a group 
of men who were enjoying her ringing 
laughter. 

“ Why do you always want to leave pleas- 
ant company ?” she asked, in a voice of as- 
sumed sorrow. “As soon as I use all my 
efforts and make myself the belle of a party, 
you must come and drag me away, just as I 
am beginning to like it.” 

“ Why, now, really, if you mean that, we 
will go back again,” he said, drawlingly, but 
with a ring of decision in his voice. 

“ Hot much, after you have spoiled my 
good time. Come, don’t be silly. Do you 


112 


THREE DAYS . 


suppose that you could drag me with wild 
horses if I didn’t want to come?” 

The force of her reasoning was quite ap- 
parent ; and so they wandered slowly down 
the beach, he digging his umbrella lazily into 
the sand at every other step, often stopping to 
question her and look into her careless blue 
eyes, that sometimes changed under his gaze 
and were veiled with a woman’s shyness. 

Colonel McAlpin, after giving directions 
to the servants as to the fire, the supper, and 
other matters, sat on a hit of rock, talking 
to Margaret Lee. 

“Why are you always taking so much 
trouble for others ?” she said, kindly, look- 
ing at him with appreciative eyes. 

“I don’t take any trouble at all,” he 
replied, rather shortly. “I do it all for 
my own amusement. I like to ... . watch 
people annoy each other on these parties, 
and when they are over see them come 
up and pour out their thanks about .... 


“ COME UNTO THESE YELLO W SANDS.' 1 H3 

4 delightful party/ ‘lovely time/ and so 
on.” 

“ Oh, don’t be so cynical,” she said, care- 
lessly. 4 4 It is altogether assumed with you.” 

44 Now, look at that poor hoy Brooks, with 
his nice face and clean heart ; the widow of 
the golden locks is bothering him to death 
with her attention, and he wants to be with 
Miss Forbes, who does not care anything 
about him, and is going off with Ashton, 
whom you would like to he with, instead of 
me, and there .... why don’t you help me 
out ?” he said, finishing with a rush, after a 
long halt. 

44 There, there ; why don’t you make a 
longer sentence of your reflection? You 
certainly don’t need any help.” 44 What 
a noble fellow he is under his peculiarities !” 
she thought, while she said, — 

44 1 know no one, truly, of all the people 
here, whom I care more to be with than 
vou.” 

h 10* 


114 


THREE DAYS . 


“Do you mean that?” he said, with an 
earnestness that quite changed him; and 
then he forgot the others in a long, pleasant 
talk with her. 

“ Come with me to the cliff,” Ashton said 
to Catharine Forbes, when they came to- 
gether, later on. “ The sun will soon go 
out, and the moon rise, and we can see it all 
from there.” 

It was not far, but the way through the 
sand was heavy, and they were in no hurry. 

“ Have you been thinking ?” he asked. 

“ Of what ?” she said, with her face 
towards the sand. 

“ Do you know, I am filled with a strange 
love for you, that I cannot explain to my- 
self, — a love I have never felt for any 
human being before, — that makes all other 
women in the world wearisome to my heart, 
so that I long, when with them, only to be 
once more with you, to tell you I love you, 
come what may ? I, who have taught my- 


11 COME UNTO THESE FELLOW SANDS.” H5 

self to weigh my words, my thoughts, my 
actions, and never to speak unless for a 
reason, must now tell you this, because I 
cannot help it. You have said you will not 
hear; hut how can you avoid it?” 

“Please don’t,” she said, faintly. 

They were climbing the cliff now, and 
there was a pause of many minutes. 

From the top they could see the group 
they had left, many of them clustered about 
a large fire, and others wandering up and 
down the beach. The disk of the sun was 
half obscured, and a moment later it disap- 
peared, leaving only a mass of clouds red 
and brown, nowhere brilliant, but deep and 
rich in sombre colors. The town, far off, 
was almost indistinguishable in the dusk, 
save for the lights that, after a time, began 
to twinkle there like stars. A great sea- 
hawk broke the picture, as with long lazy 
wing he made his way to some far resting- 
place of the night; a bunch of sand-snipe 


116 


THREE DAYS. 


flew by, crying shrilly; no breeze stirred, 
but in tbe bay they heard, through the sigh 
of the surf, the sound of a bell-buoy, muf- 
fled, yet distinct ; and then night had come. 

And a man’s voice fell upon a woman’s 
listening ears, and she had no strength to 
refuse to hear, for it was a story sweet to 
her heart, and he told it well in the soft 
summer twilight, — oh, so well that in all 
the days to come, or bright or clouded, it 
might never, never leave her. 

“ I don’t know what is in store for us in 
the future,” he said. “ God knows, I can- 
not think of it now, but I know when I am 
away from you I can never forget: as you 
stand there, looking out at the dull gray 
sea, you seem a very part of it all. I shall 
remember you thus, with the sea-wind 
touching your hair and kissing your eyes 
and charming your soul with its music. 
The world to me seems sometimes all false 
and wrong, and life, however we hope and 


“ COME UNTO THESE FELLOW SANDS” H7 

pray, will not be as we wish it ; but do not 
make it harder now by saying you do not 
care to hear me : my heart will not be silent.” 

“ Do you know what you are doing to me 
by talking thus ?” she asked, looking at 
him with strange fearless eyes lit with the 
beginning of a woman’s passion. 

“What is it?” 

“ This must be all wrong. Love that 
begins like this cannot be as it seems. 
There should be in it more than this wild- 
ness and sorrow and . longing. It is less 
than three days since we have met, and I 
feel as near to you as if I had known you 
well for as many years ; and when you talk 
to me as you do, my heart beats so, and my 
brain is not my own, for I do not seem to 
care whether it is all true or false, so long 
as I can hear it.” 

How sweet it was to him ! Never before 
had words like these come to his heart, for 
the girl who said them was young and so in- 


118 


THREE DAYS . 


nocent that they were almost as the prattle 
of childhood in their fulness and sincerity. 

“ My darling sweetheart !” he whispered ; 
hut she drew away from him. 

“ Is it not wrong for you to speak to me 
so ?” she asked. “ Don’t you know that it 
is? Tell me.” And she was so earnest 
that he wanted only to take her in his arms 
and comfort her. 

“ No, a thousand times no ; not if I love 
you and you love me.” 

“And what will he the end of it all? 
Something dreadful, I know; for I am too 
happy.” 

“ What can come hut joy to us ? Surely 
the world is ours, and life is ahead ; even if 
it he a battle, do you not say it is better 
than sloth?” 

The moon rose over the land, and as they 
turned to look upon it, large and dim in the 
warm midsummer haze, she placed her 
hand in his, hut spoke no word to him. 


CHAPTER YIII. 

“and so dance out the answer.” 

“ I said to my heart, Let us take our fill 

Of mirth and pleasure and love and laughter, 

For the fates have ever a stronger will, 

And life will be never the same life after.” 

“ I cannot tell you how much I feel what 
you have said to me this afternoon. I mean 
to accomplish something hereafter, in the 
way of work, that will make me a man and 
of some use in the world. May I trust in 
your sympathy and help?” 

On a small balcony outside of the ball- 
room of the Casino, Franklin McAlpin sat 
with Margaret Lee and spoke to her thus, 
with a depth of feeling in his voice she had 
not believed him capable of. 

“ You know it is what I wish for,” she 

119 


120 


THREE DAYS. 


said, prettily. “ As for help, I fear I cannot 
give you that, for I do not know how.” 

“But you will know some day, when I 
tell you of it,” he said, earnestly; and they 
went in, and danced together, and felt as if 
they had each discovered another friend and 
a reason for thinking that the world was not 
quite so bad a place as they had said it was, 
not long before. 

In the ball-room, Har court, as he danced 
in his formal English fashion with Jessie 
Brooks, leaned to whisper, — 

“ Don’t laugh at a chap, will you ? for I 
cannot stand it from you, you know. I 
want you to think of me sometimes without 
laughing ; and you know I have something 
I must tell you before I go away, and I 
don’t tell you right off because you will 
think I don’t mean what I say; but I do, 
and I must speak of it to you. You will 
hear me without chaffing, won’t you ?” 

“How sweet he is!” she thought. “I 


“AND SO DANCE OUT THE ANSWER” 121 

wish our Americans were as nice;” while 
she laughed, and said, — 

“What can it he you are going to say? 
Oh, I know; when the time comes, you 
will tell me you are going away. Won’t it 
he lovely and sad ?” 

But she gave him a flower from the buds 
on her breast as they walked home, and he 
was happy. 

The one who enjoyed himself least of all 
was Harry Brooks, for the widow had him 
again in her toils. Her golden hair, twined 
in a princess coil about her head and fastened 
by a great jewelled pin; her skin, made 
white and fair ; her rose-bud mouth, pretty 
and insincere, and her pale, flashing eyes, 
charmed most men; but Brooks did not 
care for them, nor for her soft, entreating 
hands that held his so warmly in the dance. 
She was certainly pretty, and danced easily 
to his steady steps, yet he could only see 
one woman in the room, a girl with dull- 
F 11 


122 


THREE DAYS. 


black hair and strange eyes, who danced 
always with another man. 

Ashton and Catharine Forbes had gone 
down from the cliff speaking low words 
together. A peace had fallen upon them 
in the twilight and the coming night. What 
more was there left to be said when she 
had placed her hands so in his ? Only the 
old, old words, over and over, — no plans, 
no future, save the wide white beach and 
the flashing fire ahead of them, with the 
honey-colored moon hanging in the sky to 
light their way. 

As they lay on the rugs, on the sand, 
while the others, grouped about, sang songs 
and told weird tales, they knew only of 
themselves, and across the fire seemed very 
far away, for he was speaking to her, and 
she listened only to his voice. In a corner 
of the coach together they had ridden home, 
and now he held her in his arms and they 
danced down the long hall, with its rows of 


“AND SO DANCE OUT THE ANSWER.” 123 

people, its bright lights, and the whirling 
couples, and thought only of each other. 

“ Oh, how happy I am !” she whispered 
to him, softly. “Will it he so always, do 
you think?” 

“ I pray God it may,” he said, speaking 
close to her, the touch of her hair thrilling 
him. 

“ Do you know,” she went on, “ I have a 
friend who was married some years ago, 
and they loved each other, and he had all 
the money they wanted, and so they went 
abroad and stayed for over a year. When 
they came back she told me she had lived a 
year of perfect happiness, — that there was 
never a remembrance in all the time save 
only of joy; and the week after she told me, 
the man she loved was dead. She has never 
been the same since, and never will. Do you 
suppose that God sometimes puts all our hap- 
piness together, — as much to some in a day as 
to others in years ? It seems so, doesn’t it ?” 


124 


THREE DAYS. 


u Don’t talk of sorrow,” lie said ; “ please 
don’t. Think of what I told yon this morn- 
ing, and dream that we are together in a 
boat, drifting down some quiet stream, 
where the scent of the meadows, sweet 
with new-mown hay, comes to you, and 
that the stars come out, one by one, and 
that I hold you in my arms and whisper to 
you to love me always. Life is such a little 
while, to love is so very sweet, and, whether 
we are heroes or singers or workers, or 
merely wanderers amid the flowers and 
brambles, the end is always the same. We 
go by different pathways, but some day our 
joys and griefs will seem very small, and we 
will cast them down with a shudder, before 
the door-way, on the sunless plain where all 
who meet stand alike before the warder who 
looks at us with hollow, beckoning eyes.” 

“ Don’t! Don’t talk so !” she said. “It 
is not true; and it hurts me.” 

And he held her close and thought of 


“AND SO DANCE OUT THE ANSWER." 125 

a noble life of toil, where each morning 
brought with it some duty, made easy be- 
cause of some one’s cheering voice; each 
night saw something done for himself and 
the world. He became known of many 
men, who sought him for his work, and 
his success was all his own ; he had won it 
in the battle of his faith. And he saw a 
home where one was waiting, always, to 
greet him with eyes that were trust and 
love; soft hands clinging to his own at 
meeting and parting, always with the 
warmth of this that he held now; and 
there were lips that kissed him as man 
might never be kissed, save only by one, 
in this life, — long, clinging kisses, as of soul 
to soul. 

There was a crash of the band, and the 
waltz was over, and Franklin McAlpin, ap- 
proaching, said, — 

“ Here is a letter I found with mine to- 
night. I forgot to give it to you before.” 

11* 


126 


THREE DAYS. 


Ashton took it from him, looked at the 
handwriting, and put it in his pocket. 

A moment after, Brooks came up and 
claimed Catharine Forbes, and Ashton was 
left alone. 

He went out beneath one of the lights at 
the entrance to the room, opened the letter, 
and stood there reading it. Two of the 
written lines burned into his eyes and 
glowed before him and would not go away : 

“ You must come for me at Newport, to- 
morrow, without fail.” 


CHAPTEE IX. 

“SO, GOOD-BYE TO YOU.” 

“Earth’s last kiss, and the eyes are strained, 

And arms outstretched, for the gloom draws nigh ; 

But lips have met, and a love is drained, — 

Earth’s last kissj dearest love, good-bye.” 

Ashton leaned against the wall, in a 
shadow, on the gallery overlooking the sea. 
It was moonlight, — so intense and clear 
that he might have seen far out over the 
waters, but his eyes were abstracted and 
anxious, for strange feelings heat at his 
heart, crying to him to open unto them. 

He grasped a letter, and once held it up 
as if about to dash it into the sea which 
foamed over the rocks below him ; hut he 
stayed his hand and again sank into 
thought. 


127 


128 


THREE DAYS. 


“I will write her a note to-night, and 
then leave by the early train to-morrow,” 
he muttered, and, turning, made his way to 
the writing-room. 

“ Darling Kate,” he wrote, “ to-morrow I 
must leave you, without saying good-bye.” 
And then, try as he might, he could get no 
further. He could not find it in his heart 
to write to her so; what would she say 
' when she read it ? Poor child ! Oh, God, 
how he loved her ! Ho ; he would go with- 
out a word, and then write to her on the 
morrow or the following day : he could ex- 
plain matters then more satisfactorily. He 
would not see or dance with her again, but 
would return to the house and take his 
departure in the morning, before she had 
risen. 

But it might not be so, for as he strode 
along the gallery Catharine Forbes came by, 
her hand on the colonel’s arm. 

“"Why, where have you been, Morris? 


“SO, GOOD-BYE TO YOU 129 

Miss Forbes has just told me that this was 
your dance with her,” the colonel blurted 
out. 

And so it was that, in place of being back 
at the hotel, Ashton was in the ball-room 
again with a girl in his arms whom he 
loved, — a woman the perfume of whose 
hair, as it rested near his heart, filled his 
senses with a touch of exaltation he had 
never known in all his varied life. 

She had quickly fallen into his long, easy 
glide, and now floated in his arms as though 
a very part of himself. How sweet and 
warm his breath was on her hair, and how 
firmly and closely his arm held her ! Was 
there in all this wide world a man like this, 
— noble and strong, — forcing people to love 
him ? Oh, that they might never part, but 
go on and on thus together into the vast 
forever, for all time to come. 

“ You are as light and soft as a piece of 
thistle-down,” he whispered, as he held her 


130 


THREE DAYS. 


closely, and a few dishevelled hairs touched 
his lips. 

44 You have a beautiful throat and shoul- 
ders, ” he had said to her, once, and so she 
wore to-night a gown which showed all 
their beauty, and he thought, now, as he 
looked at her, that he had never seen as 
fair. Her skin was dusky white. Her neck 
rose as a column of marble from the shoul- 
ders shapely and unblemished. Her eyes 
and mouth, — how doubly sweet they were 
to him, now that he thought of leaving 
them on the morrow! And, though she 
knew not of his going, her lips, when she 
leaned up and whispered to him, — how 
they begged him to stay and kiss away 
their doubts ! Should he go and leave her 
now when she had grown to be all to him ? 
Why not face the battle, though the foes 
outnumbered his forces two to one ? Why 
not break away from all the petty excite- 
ments, the vain pursuits, and the always 


“-SO, GOOD-BYE TO YOU.” 


181 


vanity of the life he led, and with this 
woman, whom he loved, force the enemy to 
give him that place the world owed to him ? 

But what did it matter, since they danced 
so together, here and there, among the 
seekers for pleasure, her form in his arms, 
her face near him, her breath on his cheek, 
and love for him in her eyes? 

The band was playing the strains of 
“ Only Once More,” and he thought of the 
morrow and the good-bye he was to say;* 
and his mind was so torn by doubts that he 
hardly knew when the waltz was over or 
how it was they were sitting in a dark 
alcove of the balcony over the sea. 

Did some unconscious throb of her heart 
foretell her what he was about to say ? — for 
a silence fell on them that neither cared to 
break. 

How warm and soft was the breeze that 
came in from the ocean, lulling their senses 
like the fragrance of summer flowers! 


132 


THREE DAYS. 


But it was winter in Ashton’s thoughts, 
and he was hack in town, with invitations 
from his fashionable friends ; and his clubs 
called to him, and theatre doors stood open ; 
and he thought of himself, tied down by 
toil in the haste of the world, so that 
frivolous laughing Gayety, with whom he 
had lived for so many years, deserted him, 
and, when she saw him with a pack on his 
back, sneered and smiled and passed him 
by. And his heart was weak, and he cursed 
himself, and his fate, and the ways of the 
world. 

Slowly he turned his eyes and looked 
upon the girl at his side, and forgot all 
else save that he loved her and wanted to 
take her in his arms and whisper all the 
mad words that trembled on his lips. 

“ Kathleen,” — how his voice faltered, — 
“ I must go away to-morrow.” 

Though it was so dark where they sat, he 
saw her eyes turned up to his with a pain 


SO, GOOD-BYE TO YOU. 


133 


in them, deep as if he had stricken her 
flesh with a knife. 

“Why?” she whispered, catching her 
breath. 

Now is your time to tell her the truth, 
Morris Ashton, without concealing anything. 
Make your peace with her heart. Surely 
she is enough of a woman to understand, 
and you may save her so much in time to 
come. 

“I am needed at once in the city, on 
business.” 

“Will you come back?” — slowly. 

“I fear I cannot, this summer.” He 
leaned closer to her. 

What was this wild throbbing of blood 
through her veins, this suffocation of her 
heart as if it was weary of beating? She 
felt faint ; a mist was before her, and, as she 
leaned forward, a ray of moonlight falling 
upon her face showed Ashton her eyes wet 
with tears. 


12 


134 


THREE DAYS. 


“ Poor little girl !” lie said. “ Don’t cry.” 
And, drawing lier head down upon his 
breast, he put his arms about her and held 
her close to his heart. 

True, sir or madam, your child would 
never have acted so — on three days’ ac- 
quaintance ; but then, you see, this girl did 
not have the advantage of the hot-house 
education of yours; so she nestled in this 
strong man’s breast, while he kissed her hair 
again and again and comforted her with 
words that came very easily from his lips. 

“ Men must work, sweetheart, and women 
weep,” he said. “But life and hope will 
come to you again ; so do not cry, mavour- 
neen. I will never forget you; and when 
you wander among the roses of your gardeh 
or sit by the fire in winter-time while your 
soul flies away to this place, think then of 
one who loves and longs for you and knows 
your troubles, and who prays that you may 
be at peace.” 


“SO, GOOD-BYE TO YOU” 135 

Her sobs were changed to sighs, under 
the persuasion of his voice. Did he not love 
her, and would not all be well at the end ? 

“And, then, some day we will come 
to the land of Heverwas,” he went on, 
“where the soft summer clouds float over 
seas that are always blue and calm, and 
you and I will be always together, where 
no one shall ever part us.” 

She was almost smiling, as she turned 
her tear-marred face up to his own, feeling 
so safe with him thus. 

He put her hair back with his hands, and 
kissed her tenderly upon her white brow, 
and then upon her eyes, but she turned her 
head away ere he touched her lips. 

“ What shall I do when you are gone ?” 
she whispered. 

“ Think of me always ; hope for the 
future ; pray for me even as a man at sea, 
that I may safely come to the haven where 
I would be.” 


136 


THREE DAYS. 


“And what will you do when you are 
gone ?” she asked. 

“ I may not live beyond my destiny,” he 
•said. “I will work, and try to follow out 
your wishes, and write to you and tell you 
many, many things. And some day I shall 
come and cry at your door, saying, ‘ Open to 
me, my love, my dove, my sweet, my unde- 
filed, for my head is heavy with the dews 
of night, and my heart is sad.’” 

She stirred in his arms, but said no word. 

“ And then the garden will be filled with 
flowers, and you and I will walk out in the 
morning, and there will be a new day begun, 
and we shall be at peace.” 

She turned her face to his. 

“Kiss me good-bye,” he said. 

He held her close; his lips were upon 
hers, and they kissed each other, — a long, 
sweet kiss, that lingered and left its marks 
upon their souls for all time. 


CHAPTER X. 

“to what end, my lord?” 

“Unsolved! And so we sadly linger here, 

And clasp our hands, and wish that we might pray 
Lacking the courage, in the mists of fear 

We may not choose. O weary heart, which way?” 


Alone ! 

Catharine Forbes knew not how the 
morning passed after he was gone, hut the 
long afternoon she spent on the cliff, in the 
old place, looking over the ocean, that lay- 
in the heat of the day without a ripple, and 
only a slow, heavy roll throbbing in its 
breast, like the beating of a weary heart. 
She could not read the book she had 
brought with her. What were tales of life, 
feince her whole being was wrapped up in 
12 * 137 


138 


THREE DAYS. 


her own story, that was all the world to 
her, now? 

She went over in her thoughts every hour 
of the time which had passed since their 
meeting. Now he was bending above her 
with questioning eyes; her hands were in 
his, while he whispered earnestly, and his 
breath was warm and sweet, his lips upon 
her own, and her heart beating so wildly 
with passionate love for him that she was 
frightened. 

Who was it had spoken that morning of 
summer flirtations ? They could not have 
thought of him, for surely no man ever 
kissed a woman as he had done and then 

forgot. And he No ! no ! come what 

might, she could never believe him other 
than what he had been to her; and she 
kissed again and again the small ring which 
he had given her, and took out a flower 
which she had picked up where it had 
fallen from his coat. How brown and faded 


“ TO WHAT END, MY LORD f” 139 

it wag, its sweetness all gone! but he had 
worn it, and that was enough. It seemed 
to her that the great gull that came swiftly 
in from the sea might be bearing his soul 
on its white wings; and when the bird 
passed over her, so close as almost to touch 
her, she felt the kisses of invisible lips on 
her hair and eyes and mouth. 

He would write : she was sure of that, 
for he had told her so. When would she 
get a letter? Perhaps to-morrow, or, at 
the latest, the next day. How would he 
begin, and what would he say? Oh, how 
she longed for a word! 

Back to the hotel, in the hazy evening 
light, along the hard beach, where the sand- 
pipers flew before her with faint, childish 
cries of fear! 

Two days had passed, and still no letter 
came. Some of the laughter in her heart 
was gone. 

Brooks, now that Ashton was away, fol- 


140 


THREE DAYS. 


lowed her about with a quiet devotion 
which touched her. There was no wish 
of hers which he did not anticipate. Then, 
too, she felt so secure in his care, no matter 
where they might be. She was with him at 
the Casino, soon after Ashton’s departure, 
and a man, Bob Knight, from Philadelphia, 
with a fine head and a weak brain, coming 
out on the balcony after a dinner-party stag- 
gered up against her drunkenly. Brooks 
caught him by the collar and lifted him off 
on to the lawn lightly as if he had been 
a child, and passed on with a laughing 
remark; but he said to her, next morn- 
ing,— 

“I hate to have you go down to that 
place in the evenings; there is always a 
chance of that sort of thing happening, and 
I don’t think any one is better for coming 
in contact with it ; you of all persons in the 
world I would guard from it.” 

The third day, and no letter. 


“ TO WHAT END , MY LORD V' 141 

She looked so anxiously for the mail in 
the morning. 

Three letters for her. She glanced at 
the address of the topmost, — from an old 
school-friend. She lingered before she 
turned to the others, with a pain and hope 
in her heart that made her feel as if it 
might stop heating. 

ISTo letter. 

She spent the morning in her room, 
pleading a headache; but in the afternoon 
she had a longing, which could not he re- 
sisted, to go out to the cliff, where she 
might watch the sails far away over the sea 
and talk only to the grass and he alone with 
her heart. 

She thought to avoid any one joining her, 
hy taking a hack way, so that she need not 
pass the hotels and the Casino ; hut chance 
had it that she met Brooks ere she had 
reached the outskirts of the town. 

“ So,” he said, laughing, “ this is the way 


142 


THREE DAYS. 


you try to escape, is it? "Where are you 
going? — if I may ask.” 

“My head aches, and I thought the sea 
air would do it good. I am going down to 
the beach.” 

As he looked at her, he saw that her face 
was pale and weary, and his heart was full 
of sorrow. 

“Let me come with you,” he said. “I 
will not trouble you, or talk if you do not 
wish it; only let me come.” 

Had he only known but a little of the 
wild desire to be alone that beat at her 
heart, he would not have asked her ; better, 
perhaps, that he had turned away for the 
moment; but absence is the last thing a 
man who loves can endure; maybe this is 
& reason why it is the last thing he sees is 
wanted. 

“ Oh, if Henry had not come !” she 
thought. “I cannot talk to him now; I 
want to be by myself.” But she could not 


11 TO WHAT END , MY LORD?” I43 

tell him so, without betraying her secret: 
so she vainly tried to appear interested in 
what he was saying. 

He seemed to feel that something troubled 
her, and his voice was low and sympathetic. 
He spoke of a vacation, — the last he had 
spent at her mother’s place, — and then 
strayed dangerously near the old story. She 
longed to cry out to him, “ Oh, do not 
speak ! I cannot bear it !” His words were 
tiresome to her at first, but as he went on, 
with trembling voice, she knew, even with 
the love of another man in her heart, 
how much she must refuse in what was 
now being offered her. She remembered 
it all so well in after-years. And who can 
say he was foolish for speaking ? Love has 
its own times and places, and may not be 
gainsaid. 

“ I love you so well,” he went on, “ that 
since you said you did not care for me I 
have really tried hard to find some one else 


144 


THREE DAYS. 


whom I could love.” It did not seem laugh- 
able as he said it ; it was the effort of hon- 
esty to her as well as to himself. “But no 
one in all this world has your hands, your 
eyes, and your lips.” 

Truly, this was not the Henry of old, 
who had halted over his stammering words. 
Love had taught him of her language, and 
Catharine was compelled to listen, with a 
certain quietness coming over her heart. 

“ Who is there who, knowing us, would 
not call me a fool, to tell you this again, 
after the way you have treated me? Hot 
that you have been unkind, hut because 
you have shown me in so many ways that 
you do not care for me. Yet I tell you, if 
ten years had passed, instead of two, and a 
thousand more obstacles stood in my way 
than there are now, I should not give you 
up. My feeling of respect to myself you 
might think would keep me silent; hut 
no ! I have never loved any one but you, I 


u TO WHAT END , MY LORD?” 445 

love you now, and I shall always love you, 
and some day you will care for me.” 

His eyes flashed so she dared not look 
at him, and there was a will in his voice 
that possessed her heart. She could not 
tell what it meant: she was almost fright- 
ened, Her eyes fell upon a little, old-fash- 
ioned ring upon her hand, and in an instant 
she was filled with a feeling of shame that 
she should he listening to words like these. 
She sought a most effective refuge as she 
said, with an accent almost of derision, that 
made his heart burn with a desire to hold 
her with strong arms and compel her to 
hear more, — 

“ Come, let us go back, it is growing late.” 
****** 
Five days, and still no sign or word ; and 
then it was a week which had passed, and 
she knew not what she thought. She must 
be true in her thoughts of him, come what 
might, 
a k 


13 


146 


THREE DAYS. 


One afternoon, before dinner, she came 
down from her room. Still no letter. She 
joined a group on the piazza who were 
opening their mail. Presently Margaret 
Lee, looking hard at her, said, — 

“ Why, here is something that will please 
you all, and you particularly, Katie dear.” 

There were many calls upon her to tell 
what it was. 

“Why, Bessie Ingram writes to me of 
her engagement to Mr. Ashton. He only 
formally proposed two days ago, but they 
have really had an understanding for some 
time, and so they want it announced at 
once.” 

There was the usual excited talk, in which 
all the girls, save one, joined. 

“He hasn’t a cent to his name.” “He 
always was on the lookout for rich girls.” 
“Yes, and such a handsome fellow.” “He 
was so sweet and polite.” “ Do you know * 
he was a winner among women, too ? They 


“ TO WHAT END, MY LORD?” 147 

say lie has kissed more girls than any other 
man about.” “ He kissed Maud Alden the 
first night he met her ; and she is no fool, 
either.” And so on. 

Catharine Forbes was sick and giddy. 
There was such a suffocation at her heart 
and her brain that she could think of noth- 
ing save the possibility of Jessie Brooks 
falling backward off the railing; hut she 
recovered herself in an instant, as she caught 
the bright eyes of Miss Lee and saw a sneer 
on her face. With an effort she forced 
herself to a seat and laughed, a strange 
little laugh. 

“I knew from what he told me,” she 
said, “ that we should hear something of 
the kind soon.” She did not, indeed, see 
the irony of her speech. 

Then dinner was announced. Her mother 
handed her a letter she had taken from the 
box, before Catharine had come down. It 
was from Ashton. Carelessly she thrust it 


148 


THREE DAYS. 


in her belt. Fortunately, she sat at a table 
apart from the others, and managed to get 
through the meal without attracting atten- 
tion, though she ate nothing. 

Only to get away from everybody! Oh 
for the silence of the sea again ! How, she 
did not know, hut she was once more there, 
and the sun was going down. 

Back at the old place ! 

She took out her letter: she had not 
dared to read it before. There was no 
address or signature, hut only these lines 
written in firm, small letters : 

“ For you, remember always, whatsoever 
things are true, whatsoever things are hon- 
est, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever 
things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, 
whatsoever things are of good report; if 
there he any virtue, if there be any praise, 
think of these things. 

“As for me, I have broken the faith; I 
have fled from the fight; for the rest ” 


“ TO WHAT END , MY LORD?” 149 

She stood with her face turned towards 
the glory of the sunset. The sky was a 
mass of crimson, purple, and gold, and the 
sun sent forth a thousand rays that hashed 
up into the heavens like some fantastic 
display of northern lights. 

She did not see the splendor of it all, for 
her heart was cold, and there crept through 
her veins a great throb of weariness like 
that of one who is losing consciousness. 
Her eyes, that had been so dry, now 
drooped languid and sorrowful, and pres- 
ently filled with great burning tears that 
would have their way. It seemed to her 
poor, childish heart that the world was some 
great limitless prairie on which she stood 
alone, and as far as her eyes might see there 
was naught but waste and silence and hope- 
lessness. The night, filled with evil shapes, 
was closing down over all; there was no 
sun, and no east or west, — only darkness 
everywhere. 


13* 


150 


THREE DAYS. 


She was so much a child that she had no 
reason at her command for guidance. It 
was all so new to her, so undreamt of before ; 
and she cried so earnestly, in a faint voice 
under her breath, “ Oh, do come back ! 
Don’t go away and leave me forever !” and 
then, in childish command, “ Come back to 
me ! Come back to me, I tell you ; come 
back to me!” 

But it was only the sea that whispered in 
reply, as it softly fell upon the sand, “ Never 
again. Never again.” 

The deep tones that had grown so familiar 
to her, and to which she had listened as to 
the voice of a prophet in a new land, the 
lazy eyes whose light had burned a pathway 
into the inner temple of her soul, the clasp 
of his arms, the kisses that had waked her 
to such new, strange depth of feeling, — these 
would not come back at her calling. And 
it seemed to her not days but centuries since 
she had known him. It was not the shallow 






11 TO WHAT END, MF LORD?” 151 

sorrow of disappointment or girlish bitter- 
ness of heart that marred her soul, — only 
the feeling that life was over for her forever. 

She threw herself in the long grass and 
sobbed away her soul. “My God, my 
God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ 5 Did 
Christ utter the words with the last throb 
of the great human heart which beat in his 
bosom ? His cry has echoed down the ages 
to be the ultimate prayer of his followers in 
the extremity of their sorrow and need. 

Never again the same. 

A child lay dying in the tall grass on the 
cliff, and great sobs shook the tired body. 
It was only such a trifling thing, it is true, 
that had hurt her. There had been no 
desperado, with heart filled with robbery 
or hate, to stab her or grasp her white 
throat with cruel fingers. It was only a 
friend who had failed her. Oh, if it had 
only been you or me, we should have 
known ; we should not have allowed such a 


152 


THREE DAYS. 


small matter to affect us ; but, you see, this 
poor child was ignorant and weak, and it 
hurt her, and she did not know of any cure 
for her sorrow. 

Sobs and cries, while the evening fell 
drearily, and then great gasps as if her 
heart was being strangled; then — then — 
the blades of grass about the body rustled 
a little, and all was still. 

A child had passed away out of the tall 
grass over the limitless ocean and into the 
blackness of night. The simplicity, the 
tenderness, the childish eyes so frank and 
open, the little clinging, baby ways, the 
laughter without conceit, the sweetness, so 
deep, so beyond all things else beautiful in 
this world, — all were gone; the child was 
dead. 

And when night had fully come, a woman 
passed down the pathway, with her gown 
clinging damply about her. She walked 
slowly, but with a firm and deliberate tread, 


“TO WHAT END , MY LORD?” 153 

and passed np the beach towards the lights 
of the town. One would have thought she 
would have hurried from the blackness and 
loneliness of the beach towards the gay 
lights, for the sound of music drifted over 
to her ears : the band was playing “ Life 
and Love” for the waltzers. Perhaps she 
did not care for the brightness, for once 
she stopped and turned and looked out 
to the sea. Did the mystery ahead seem 
greater than that she was leaving? Had 
she conquered the problem of the night 
and the darkness, — the reason of the sor- 
rows ? Did she long to leave it all for the 
rest in the arms of the soft sea that mur- 
mured so lovingly to her? or was she too 
weary and broken to know or care which 
was better ? Presently she turned and went 
on her way towards the town. 

■When she reached the lights there was 
in her eyes the appealing look of an animal 
hunted to the death, — no sign of girlhood 


154 


THREE DAYS. 


about her, — and the face that sbone so white 
and sad was the face of a woman. 

She could not have life as she wished; 
she had taken up the burden of living, for 
she might not desert, and she had entered 
upon a battle-field where all must meet who 
are not cowards, — a field where one cannot 
know friend from foe, so like are they at 
times, and where there are no armies, but 
only battles between the few, that never, 
never end, for the recruits are many. 

Never again the same! 

The night might pass, and the dreary 
shadows, that mocked about and afirighted 
her soul, flee away with the mists of the 
sea at the breaking of day. She might 
stand in the radiance and a thousand beams 
and colors of the dawn light the world 
about her, in which she might seem to be 
only in sunlight and joy, her face lit with 
the soft sweetness of a new morning. She 
might sit by a fireside of her own, where, 


11 TO WHAT END , MY LORD f” 155 

in the flickering light, she should hear 
true words of love, and feel a baby’s head 
against her own, and baby hands clutching 
at her breasts, and she might dream she was 
at peace. But the old bitter pain would not 
leave her heart ; the world would never be 
the same; she would forever be thinking 
of the right and the wrong of it all, — why 
life should be so. The weary, hurt look 
that will never go out of her eyes has been 
born in the night of the limitless sorrow of 
love. 


THE END. 













































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